Far From Grace
by Efiwyvan
Summary: Mike's life takes a downward spiral, and his family falls with him. Chapter 45 is up.
1. 1

**

* * *

**

-

_Just a few notes on this story._

_I began it a long, long time ago, but I stopped writing it some time around chapter twenty, realizing that it was the kind of story that would be very difficult to end._ _However, I started writing on it again, bringing it up to chapter 32. It took me a couple years to add any more to it after that, but I have again been working on it._

_It used to be called "Fallen", but I have changed the name to "Far From Grace" -- and I am now in the process of correcting a few of the mistakes that have been in here from the beginning. I suppose that calling it a story or a fanfic wouldn't be strictly correct. It has evolved (devolved, perhaps) into something of a soap opera. I am not sure how much longer this story will go on, but I have plans for it._

_It takes place in the Archie Universe. Oyuki, who is heavily involved in the story, is **not** an original character, though at times she may seem that way. If you would like to learn about her, check out my Author's Info page._

_Really high** T** rating for… well, a lot of stuff. Drugs, suicide, etc. Please, use your best judgment in deciding if you want to read ahead, but do remember that you were warned. Please do not be angry at me for the_ _things that I put Mikey and the rest through in this story. Writing it has been a rather cathartic experience for me, and it has, surprisingly, helped me through some tough times in my own life._

-

**

* * *

**

**New York**

April 20

Michaelangelo spat out a mouthful of blood and smiled... he knew that it would be the last thing his opponent would see.

"Any last words, _freak_?" the man said, stepping closer to the turtle.

Mike bared his teeth and glared past the gun that was aimed at his head.

"Sure, I got some..." the ninja said. "But they ain't gonna be said to you." The stranger pulled the trigger but Mike was faster; between the click and the bang a well-placed foot to the face sent the man tumbling backwards. He teetered on the edge of the building, flailing his arms. That was when Mike noticed something shiny on the man's left hand: a wedding band.

_Oh, damn! This spaz is married,_ he thought as he reached out, grabbing furiously for him.

A brush of leather against Michaelangelo's palm and he had the jacket tightly in his grip. The stranger still fell, out of the too-loose fitting garment. Mike dove forward, reaching down as the man fell out of sight into the darkness below. He heard the man's impact on the concrete and squeezed his eyes shut.

Off in the distance the sound of sirens grew nearer. Mike assumed that someone must have heard the gun go off the first time, about five minutes before. He wasn't even sure what had started the confrontation... just that the man hadn't been happy about a stranger showing up when he was talking to his friends... the other creeps ran, this one didn't. He had chased Mike all the way to the top of the roof and distracted him with a gunshot then kicked him in the mouth. The rest was just a flash of images - and all that Mike really knew was that there was a dead man... a dead **husband** lying on the ground two hundred feet below.

Mike jumped from rooftop to rooftop and watched from a distance as the police pulled up and jumped out of their squad cars. One of them stepped forward and placed his fingertips against the man's throat and then looked up at the other cop, shaking his head. Mike knew what it meant, but he didn't really need the confirmation, there was no way a human could have survived that fall. Solemnly, the ninja made his way back down to the street and then the sewers, dragging the man's jacket behind him. He had seen people die before, he had killed people before, but somehow it felt different this time. He thought about the man's family and wondered if they would ever be able to forgive him. He stopped and leaned back against the sewer wall, realizing that they would never even know what really happened. This man's death would go down as just another murder on the streets of New York City.

_Murder..._ Mike thought.

-

"...Yeah, we're all fine here," Leo said into the telephone. "How was your trip?"

Donatello and Raphael sat quietly on the couch as their brother spoke to Splinter, who was at that moment a half a world away. Their sensei had suggested to April and Oyuki that they take on the task of filming a documentary, April accepted the challenge and chose real life in Japan as her subject. More specifically, the subject was a comparison of life in Japan in the nineteen-fifties to that of the new millennium. Splinter agreed to be the voice of the past, Oyuki reluctantly accepted the role of the present - neither one of them would actually appear on film, which worked out well all around. It had been a week since the ad hoc documentary crew had left and they decided to call from their first location - Hiroshima, a place that held deep emotions for them all.

"...Good. Huh? ...of course! No, he isn't here right now. Yeah, I'll tell him..."

Don tapped his foot on the floor impatiently and Leo recognized the signal. "I think Donny wants to say something," he said into the phone. "...Okay, I will. Bye..." Leo turned to Donatello and put a hand over the receiver. "Make it quick, he only has a few minutes on his calling card."

The purple-clad turtle took the phone and offered a hearty, "Hi, Master!" He was silent for a few seconds while Splinter spoke to him on the other end. "...I'll be sure to do that," he said finally. "...No, it's cool. Well... yeah, okay. It's nice to hear your voice. Yeah, we miss you, too. Wanna' yap at Raph? Okay, love ya'!"

Don thrust the phone out to Raphael, who took it with a roll of his eyes. He sighed before speaking into the receiver. "Hello? Yeah... No... I won't... Yeah... Okay, bye." He pushed the button, turning off the phone. Leo and Don looked at him as if expecting something. "What?"

"That was a pretty quick conversation," Don said, leaning forward and opening a pizza box that was sitting on the coffee table.

Raphael shrugged. "His card timed out. He said they would probably just write letters so they won't have to pay twenty bucks to talk for five measly minutes next time."

"Mike's gonna' be disappointed that he missed the call," Leo said, helping himself to a slice. "Splinter said Oyuki wanted to talk to him."

Raph grinned. "Heh, I'll bet..."

"Mike's been gone for a while. Where'd he go, anyway?" Don asked.

"Out, I guess," Raphael said, picking up the remote control and flipping on the television.

"Thanks for yet again stating the blindingly obvious, Raph," Leo said sarcastically.

"Well, how the hell am I supposed to know where he went?"

"It was a rhetorical question," Don clarified.

"A re-what?"

"Never mind."

Raphael shrugged. "Whatever."

-

Michaelangelo paused outside the door to the lair and looked at the jacket. He didn't know why he hadn't just dumped it somewhere along the trail home, it would have been so easy just to toss it away... he wondered why it wasn't so easy to toss away the guilt. He tried asking himself why he felt so bad this time, the question only led to a larger one: why **didn't** it hurt this bad every time? Where was that limit where one is able to decide if a person deserves to live or die. Mike and the others made that decision frequently, blindly... they thought they knew that they were the good guys and that it was easy to pick the bad guys out of a line-up of the usual suspects. The usual, ordinary, normal, regular... people. He tightened his grip on the leather and opened the door, walking past his brothers who sat eating pizza and watching TV.

"Hey, Mikey," Leo said, glancing up for a second before returning his attentions to the horror movie of the week. "Nice coat, bro... want some 'za?"

Mike shook his head and tightened his grip on the jacket. "Nah..." he said. "I'm not hungry."

The others all looked at one another in amazement.

"You okay, pal?" Raph asked sincerely. "You aren't coming down with something, are you?"

"No, I'm good..."

"Well, then," Don said, holding out a slice.

"I said **I'm not hungry**!" Mike yelled. The room fell silent except for the annoying ramblings of a used car salesman on the television.

"I'm going to bed early," Mike said in a less angry tone. "I'll see y'all tomorrow."

"Night..." Leo offered weakly.

"Later," Raph said.

Don sat motionless, still holding the slice of pizza out towards where Mike had just been. "Uh... g'night," he said as sauce dripped onto the floor. A few seconds later the door to Michaelangelo's room slammed shut.

"Jeez, what's eating him?" Raph asked when he was sure his brother was out of earshot.

The other two turtles shrugged and returned their attentions to the television.

-

"Damn!" Mike said, sitting down on his bed. He looked at the coat in his grip and began to look through the pockets, not quite sure why. His hand found a bundle inside and he pulled it out, grimacing. It was drugs... a lot of drugs. He shook his head.

_Well,_ he said to himself, _I guess this guy's rep remains intact... since I got the evidence... _He wasn't certain whether or not he should feel better by that fact, so he tossed the bundle aside and tried to force it out of his mind. Rooting some more, he came out with a wallet. He opened it slowly and did a double-take; the wallet held about three hundred dollars, some credit cards, some pictures - and a badge.

Mike felt like he was going to be sick. _Jesus... God, I killed a cop..._

He stared at the open wallet and let it sink in. A cop. He had killed a** married** cop. He pulled the pictures out and began flipping through them, unable to stop himself. There was one of a dog, a woman in a silver dress, a baby... He pulled out the baby picture and flipped it over, reading the back.

_Mandy, seven months,_ it said, then below it, _I love you, Daddy..._

Mike shoved the pictures back in the wallet and threw it on the floor. He had to do something about this, tell someone in authority. Yeah, right, he said to himself. Simply by virtue of what he and his brothers were they were out of the Law's reach - they could not answer for their crimes to anyone but themselves. Even if he wanted to he could not confess to this crime... this murder.

He jumped at the sound of a knock on his door.

"Who is it?" he called out, grabbing the wallet and bundle and shoving them under his mattress. On top of everything, he didn't want his family to think that he was doing drugs - nor was he ready for them to find out what had happened.

"It's Leo! Can I come in?" came the reply.

Mike laid back on the bed and put on a poker face before calling out, "Yeah!"

The door squeaked open and Leonardo poked his head inside. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Why?"

The turtle came in the door and shut it behind him, walking over to Mike's bed and sitting down. "You just seem a little out of it. Are you feeling well?"

"Never better."

"Mmm..." Leo said, rubbing his chin, searching for a conversation subject. "Oh, hey! I forgot to tell you, Splinter called."

Mikey sat up on his bed and was suddenly paying much more attention to what was being said. "How are they doing?"

_Translation: how is Oyuki doing,_ Leo thought with a smile. "Fine. They're in Hiroshima now, next week they'll be heading to Kyoto."

"He say how long they'll be gone?"

Leo shrugged. "Don't know. It'll probably be a while. A couple months, I guess."

"**Months**?" Mike said, slumping. "Why that long? I mean, it isn't such a big country and the bullet train can..."

Leo let out a short laugh. "They want to get some good footage, get a real feel for the place - that takes time."

Michaelangelo cast a downward glance. "How's Oyuki?"

Leo knew that question was coming. "She's good. She wanted to talk to you."

"I'm sorry I missed the call," Mike said sadly.

"Hey," Leonardo cuffed him on the arm. "Don't worry about it, she said she'd write to you."

_Yeah... too bad I can't write back,_ he thought. He wished that they had an address in Japan so he could drop Oyuki a line and tell her how he was doing. He rescinded the wish when he remembered what, exactly, was going on. He didn't want her to know that... not yet.

"I'll look forward to it," he said, instead.

Leo slapped his brother on the knee and stood up. "I'll let you get some rest now," he said, walking for the door. as he turned the knob he glanced around at Mike. "You sure you're okay?"

Mike smiled a completely unconvincing fake smile. "Never better." He winced, remembering that he had already said that.

Leonardo sighed and left, shutting the door behind him. Mike flopped back onto his carapace and rolled to his side. _Real smooth,_ he told himself. He looked across to where the jacket lay and pushed it off the bed. He listened to his brothers as they laughed and yelled at the television. They didn't know, they had no concept of the confusion that Mike was feeling at that moment. He wondered if they ever felt the same way, if they ever hated themselves for something they'd done. He wondered if they ever even thought about it - or if maybe they just didn't care.

* * *


	2. 2

**

* * *

Hiroshima, Japan**

April 23

She was back on the street again, the one that she had promised herself she would never return to. Oyuki pushed her hands into her pockets and clenched her fists, keeping her eyes focused on the ground at her feet as she walked on alone. She didn't want to look around her, she didn't have to; she had lived on these sidewalks for so long that she knew where she was by the cracks in the concrete. One step after another she traced her life backwards in time, remembering the pain and fear and doubt, feeling the hollow rumble of her stomach as it cried out for food. She stopped, knowing where she stood without looking up. She was there, the last place she had called home before she had been forced into the streets. She made herself look up at the old stone building, it was much smaller than she remembered - or maybe it was just he life there that had been small.

She sat down on the stoop and glanced over her shoulder at the tiny window, the delicate white curtain hanging motionless. Once there had been other curtains on that window, blue ones with a lace trim. They weren't always still, either - there was a time when those curtains would part whenever she walked by. That was in the beginning, when her mother still cared. But she hadn't cared enough... not enough to allow Oyuki to continue living with her once the likeness of her father had begun to show through. She had never met him, just heard vague statements under her mother's breath telling her how much she was beginning to look and act just like he had. She told Oyuki she had his eyes... she never liked looking into her daughter's eyes. He had been a foreigner, but even Oyuki didn't know where he was from, just that he was a _gaijin_ that had promised to love her mother and then left when she became pregnant. Her mother tried to fit her and her illegitimate daughter into one neighborhood after another, but to no avail. They were always shunned, turned away and thought of as pariahs due simply to the conditions of her birthright.

For a long time afterwards she would sleep in the alley across the street, looking over towards the building and watching the curtains. Once in a while they would part and her mother would look out, checking to see if her estranged daughter was still there, still alive and well. It was that small action that gave Oyuki hope that one day she would be welcomed back within the building and her mother's heart. But over time the fabric didn't move quite as often and eventually the curtain did not part at all. Her mother had let go and Oyuki knew it was time to do the same, so she left that street and moved on to other ones.

"Oyuki?"

She looked up, surprised. This was a voice she had not heard in years. "Hideki?"

He was smiling and looking at her from head to foot, examining every inch as if he had never seen her before. He did not look the same to her, the last time Oyuki had set eyes upon this man his hair had been long and tied back into a tail, now it was trimmed short and he was wearing eyeglasses that made him look not only intelligent but more handsome than she remembered. She jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around him.

"So, where you been hiding?" he asked, returning the hug.

She pulled herself away and blushed. "Uh... America."

"No kidding?"

She shrugged. "See, I told you I'd make good some day."

He had been one of the people who had been her friend when she was on her own out on the streets. Most people would not give her a second look, but Hideki had given her more than a look. Sometimes he would give her money for food or hide her after she had stolen something that had belonged to a neighbor. He had even given her a place to sleep some nights. She turned her face to the ground, remembering those nights.

"So, what do you do now? You have a job, right?" Hideki asked, noticing her far away look.

"I'm with a... film company."

"A film company? What do you do?"

"I operate the camera, produce a little. Were making a documentary right now and I'm going to be in it. Well, kind of..." _Don't look at me like that, Hideki..._

He had his eyes focused on hers, trying to see past the black strands that fell in front of them. He always did that, he always started like that. She had hoped that after all this time he would have forgotten about it, about what they had done - but he hadn't. Neither had she.

Hideki stepped up and brushed her hair away from her eyes. "I always knew you'd make it off the streets," he said in a soft voice.

"So, uh... how are you doing?" she asked, turning away and trying to divert his attention.

"Pretty good. I've had some tough times, but I'm back on my feet again." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I've missed you."

She glanced at him and folded her arms across her chest defensively. The joy of the reunion had been replaced by something else, an old, familiar feeling that lingered somewhere between fear and desire. He still had that effect on her, even after all this time, after all she had learned. She didn't want to be there anymore, she wanted to get back to the hotel with April and Splinter. She'd told them she was just going for a short walk, that she would not be gone long; they were probably already getting worried.

"I missed you, too," Oyuki said. She didn't know why she couldn't just walk away. It had been different in the past, it was something she had done for a purpose. Now she knew better. Now she had a choice.

Hideki turned her towards him and ran his fingers through her hair, "_Hishashiburi_."

Oyuki let her hands fall to her sides. She didn't want him to do this, not again. Couldn't he see that she was so much better off in life now? She had people now that loved her, that she loved in return. She didn't want the old memories to return, the old burn to invade her body. She didn't love him, she didn't want him. He moved his face closer to hers and she could feel his breath on her face.

_Hideki, don't,_ she thought, unable to say it out loud. _Don't kiss me... please..._

His lips brushed against hers...

-

Oyuki lay awake in the near-dark, the sheet pulled up over her bare chest as she listened to the light rain tapping against his window. She had tried to say no, but the words hadn't made it past her lips. She went along again as if it still mattered, as if she still needed to pay for a warm place to sleep at night. Sleep... she had never actually slept by his side.

Every time he had exacted this control over her without her being able to set forth any resistance. Every time, she knew exactly what he would do, she knew where it would lead. It had always been the same: he would look into her eyes and run his fingers through her black strands, then he'd kiss her and tell her how much he wanted to take care of her. And Oyuki knew it was a lie, but she always went along with him - because she had to, because the only alternative was to sleep on the cold sidewalk for another evening. So she would let him slip his hand under her shirt and touch her skin and pull himself close to her, then he'd lead her to his home. He would lay her down and whisper words that meant nothing and she would feel her body grow warm while her soul grew cold. And when they were done he would fall asleep - while she lay awake and cried.

He was sleeping again, with his back turned towards her. That was how he always slept, his arms empty while her heart cried out for an embrace. She wanted to be pulled close and held throughout the night, to feel secure arms around her saying that everything would be alright in the morning. But Hideki never did, he shut her out as soon as he was done taking her. He kept his distance from her body and, so, her heart. He wanted the first touch, the heat... he had never wanted her love. But she **had** loved him once, she thought that he had loved her, as well. At that time she had been young and didn't understand, she didn't know what she truly was to him was a toy, a game that he always won.

Oyuki slipped out from between the sheets and felt around the floor for her clothes. She dressed quietly in the darkness - like she had always done before. That was how he liked it, he would let her sleep there but did not want to see her face in the morning light. So she had always done what he wished; she always dressed by herself as he slept, she was always gone before the dawn. She glanced back at him as her hand fell upon the doorknob and he opened his eyes, looking at her. He knew she was leaving, he didn't care... everything that he had done to her before he was doing again, just like she had never left, just like she had never learned. He rolled away - turning his back to her once again.

_That's the last time you'll ever do that to me, Hideki._ Oyuki walked out the door, leaving it open behind her. _I don't need you anymore._

* * *


	3. 3

New York

April 24

"Maybe he misses Splinter," Don suggested as he, Leo, and Raphael sat around the kitchen table, trying to figure out why Michaelangelo had been so quiet for the past few days. So far they had been able to come up with no real explanations.

"You mean Oyuki," Raph corrected him with a slight grin.

Don nodded. It was hard to miss the look on Mike's face when Oyuki was around. "You could be right."

"_Oyuki withdrawal_..?" Leo said with a touch of humor. The humor faded quickly, though, and his usual seriousness punched through to the surface. "I dunno, guys... maybe he's just down in the dumps."

"What do you think we can do to cheer him up?" Don asked.

They heard Mike's door open and listened to his soft footfalls. They all tried to act innocent, like they were talking about some other subject.

"I'm bored," Don faked. "So... what do you guys want to do?"

After a pause, Leo replied "I dunno... what do you wanna' do?"

"I'm going out for a run," Raph said as he stood and stretched. He looked at Mike, who was standing by quietly, looking from one face to another. "You wanna' go with me?"

It took a few seconds for Mike to answer with a slight shake of his head. "No, you go ahead."

"C'mon, kid... you love to race me! I betcha' I could beat you to the..." Raph stopped suddenly, looking at his brother's face. "You okay?"

"Fine... I'm just not in a very good mood, that's all."

Don sighed. "I'm gonna' miss Splinter, too," he said. "But while the cat's away... uh, I mean the rat's... uh..."

Don and Leo smiled; Mikey didn't. He left the kitchen without another word.

Raph had noticed more than anyone the mood his little brother had fallen into. But there seemed to be something more to Mike's state of mind than just a mood - and try as he may, he couldn't get his brother to reveal what it was. He walked to Mike's bedroom door and raised his hand to knock, but the door swung open before he had the chance. Mike was dressed in his real world clothes: a trench coat and felt fedora. He barely acknowledged Raph as he slid past.

"Where you goin'?" Raphael asked, falling into step beside Mike.

"For a walk," was the barely audible reply.

"Mind if I join you?"

"I just want to be alone, okay? Do you think you could let me alone for a few minutes?" he yelled as he continued to walk.

Raph stopped in mid-step, Mike had never before been so blunt with him. The red-masked turtle watched as his brother walked out of the lair and into the sewer beyond, leaving the door open behind him. After a few seconds, Raph left as well.

He surreptitiously followed Mike into the city, feeling a little guilt and a great deal of curiosity about where he was being led by the unwary turtle ahead. Mike marched at a funereal pace while Raphael struggled to stay a few steps behind without the fellow ninja becoming aware of his presence - not an easy task when traveling at such a slow pace. Eventually Mike stopped at the base of a building and looked up, then back down at the concrete. He stared downwards, looking so intently at the ground that Raph was sure there was something there that he, himself could not see. Mike stumbled over to the curb and sat, burying his face in the hollows of his hands.

Somehow, Raph felt like he was intruding on Mike's private time, that his mere presence, hidden as it had been, was going to disturb the sensitive turtle in the midst of his reverie. Noiselessly, Raphael slid away into the shadows, leaving his brother to his solitary thoughts.

-

"Where do you suppose they went?" Don asked.

Leo shrugged. Mike and Raph had both taken off, neither one telling them where they were going or even presenting them with a courtesy of a good-bye. Not that it was out of character for Raphael to do so, but for Mike it was virtually unheard of.

"Maybe they went for that run," Leonardo offered.

"Maybe."

"Nope," Raphael's voice came from the kitchen doorway. "Just for a walk."

"How's he doing?" Leo asked, pushing out a seat for his brother.

"Couldn't say, I didn't talk to him."

"I thought you said you went for a walk with him," Don sounded a little confused.

"Behind him, actually. I followed him into the city."

"And..." Leo pressed.

"And... he stopped at a building and sat down. That's it - that's all."

"What building?"

"On Broad Street." Raph sat up suddenly. "Donny, can I get you to look something up for me?"

"Sure."

Raphael grabbed Donatello by the arm, dragging him to the computer in the other turtle's room. He pushed him into the seat and pointed at the keyboard. "Can you make this thing grab up any news stories regarding Broad Street in the past three days?"

"Of course," Don said, switching on the machine. He looked up as Leo entered the room and then focused back on the computer. "You think you know what's going on?"

"I have no damn idea."

"Okay... just give me a few seconds." His fingers flew over the keyboard and it really was only a few seconds before he sat back and folded his arms across his chest. The computer beeped and a screen appeared, vanishing just as quickly.

"What have we here..?" Don said, punching a few more keys. "Not a news report... it's a federal file. And it's encrypted."

"Can you break in?" Leo asked.

Don stopped typing and looked up. "I already have." The screen flashed back to life and this time stayed in sight.

"Show off," Raph said.

Leonardo's eyes widened. "I can't even turn that damn computer on!"

"So, what does it say?" Raph asked, getting on his knees for a closer look.

"It says _you'd better back away before you get a face-print on the screen_," Don said in a mechanical voice.

Raphael sneered and slid back a little, letting Don examine the prolix red tape and eyes-only warnings.

Donatello scrolled down, reading through the document faster than either of the others could keep up with. "Nothing," he said. "Not a damn thing."

"Then, why was it encrypted?" Leo asked.

Raph stood. "'Nother question: why did your search pull it up?"

"Well, the only thing it mentions about Broad Street is an side-note about the recent incident there ruining the planned actions - whatever those actions were," Don said.

"What incident?" Leo shifted his weight.

"It doesn't say."

Raphael concentrated on the barely-pronounceable words on the screen. "Then what's the rest of this shit?"

"Legal mumbo-jumbo. Mainly it's a warning not to look at the documents underneath. Problem is, the documents underneath aren't there anymore. They were deleted."

"What part of the government did this thing come from?" Raphael asked, standing.

"Uh, details?" Don said, punching in a few digits and some letters that meant nothing to the others in the room. "This is from the DEA," he said, sitting back and blinking hard. He looked up at Leo. "You don't suppose Mike's into something serious, do you?"

Leonardo shook his head. "No way, he's a good kid."

"What do you think we should do?" Donatello asked after several long seconds.

Leo stood up straight and crossed his arms. "Off hand, I'd say we ask him what is going on."

"Yeah, but... do we have that right? I mean, if he'd have wanted us to know about it he'd have told us. Right..?"

Raphael sighed. "What else have we got? We can't let him keep up like this."

Don nodded. "I guess."

"Agreed, then?" Leonardo asked. "We ask him in the morning."

"What about tonight?" Don asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think he'll be okay?"

"He can take care of himself. He'll be fine."

Raphael turned on his heel and walked out of the room without a sound - his usual polite exit.

"I hope you're right," Don said as Leo turned to leave, as well.

Leo stopped but didn't look back. "He'll be fine," he repeated.

Don could tell that Leonardo was unsure - Leo hated being unsure. He left the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Don to his own pursuits. The erudite turtle shifted in his seat, returning his attention to the screen before him and cracking his knuckles.

"Okay," he said softly, half to the computer and half to himself. "There has to be more in here... and I'm gonna' find out what it is..." He looked over at the alarm clock and noticed that it was after one in the morning. "...Even if it takes me all night."

-

Through the darkness, Michaelangelo could hear the sounds of life as it went on. It only made him more confused. Mike had turned it over in his mind several times and the only answer he could come up with was that the man was undercover - that was why his name and identity hadn't been released. The investigation would be severe; they would come up with suspects - but not the right one. There was no way for him to confess to the world that it was he who killed the man... to tell them that he had done it before. That he had killed people that were perhaps someone's loved ones, someone's parents... He wondered about how it must feel to be on the other side. How would he react if someone were to take Splinter away? Surely some things that the sensei had done in his past were not honorable, but that did not cause Mike to love him any less. That man that Mike had sent falling two-hundred feet onto the concrete - he had people who loved him and depended on him. The turtle didn't know who they were, but he knew they existed. He had no doubt that whoever they were they were crying out for justice, that they hated him even though they had never met him. His regret would not make their pain and anger go away, that made Mike feel even worse.

_I could've..._ he stopped the thought, not wanting to lie to himself. He couldn't have saved the man, not after wanting to see him die so badly. He'd tried to catch him, but only after he had taken those steps to kill him.

_Maybe I should get home,_ he thought, focusing on his immediate need of sleep. _Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be a dream... a nightmare._

"**No! Stop!**" a woman's shrill cry broke the night.

Mike's face flew up and he looked up the road to where a woman and a man were locked in a violent pas de deux; his hands were clenched around her tiny wrists and he tossed her back and forth like a toy. Mike stood motionless, observing the struggle and yelling at himself in his mind. His conscience told him to help but his legs would not move, refusing to let him intervene.

_You'll just make it worse..._

The man threw the woman to the concrete and reached behind him, pulling out a switchblade and pushing the button. It flipped open and there was a glint of light against the metal - Michaelangelo felt a visceral shock. His feet released their hold on the street and he ran to the couple, putting himself between the man and his intended victim. The blade hit Mike's plastron and the man stared ahead with widened eyes, angry and frightened all at once. Michaelangelo growled, knocking the knife from the human's hand and pushing him onto the ground.

"Back off, jackass!" Mike yelled.

The man scooted away, watching the strange creature. Mike turned aside, clenching his fist and swearing under his breath. That would do, he wouldn't take this fight any farther. Not this time.

He heard a noise behind him and he began to turn around, but at that moment something sharp tore through the back of his neck. He lurched forward and landed on his knees, gagging. Pain shot through his muscles as he coughed. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, oozing onto the ground.

"Leave my husband alone!"

It was her... the woman who's life he had just saved; she had stabbed him after he had kept that man from killing her. Mike's eyes scanned the ground, searching for something, anything, a weapon of defense - what he found was the knife, free of blood and several yards away. She hadn't used the knife. But, then what..?

The ninja reached behind himself and took hold of a plastic cylinder, yanking it away from his body. He opened his hand and began to shake, staring at the syringe. Unable to keep himself upright he fell forward, hitting his head against the blood-coated asphalt. He rolled to his side weakly and watched the woman and man walk away together.

"Do you know how much that shit cost me?" the man scolded. "If you'd have just given it to me instead of fighting with me over it..."

"Oh, shut up... now neither of us get it..." she said to him.

They turned a corner and left Mike's line of sight, their voices disappearing into the evening. He forced himself to sit up and shoved the needle into his pocket.

_...Maybe..._ he thought with great difficulty, _...Don... Don can help..._

The ninja stood on unsteady legs and began to walk forward, swaying with each step. Flashes of light assaulted the edges of his vision and his eyes darted back and forth. A face came toward him out of the darkness and he ducked, tripping on his own feet and landing on all fours. He crawled to a nearby building and clawed himself up, spinning around and searching the pitch for the face. It flew at him again - a head without a body... screaming and flashing its teeth. The turtle struck it, shattering the face into shards of glass that swirled around him, digging into his skin. It reformed itself and opened it's mouth wide, trying to sink it's teeth into him.

Mike pushed himself away from the wall and began to run as eyes watched him from both sides of the street. Faces without bodies... voices that hissed past razor-sharp teeth. They drew nearer, snarling and gnashing, biting at his eyes and grinning evil grins. He was watching them, not paying attention to where his feet were leading him. He hit something in his path and fell down then launched himself back to his feet, reaching out for the invisible barrier. Another face came at him and he grabbed at it. It opened it's mouth and snapped it's teeth. The face fell away and he stepped forward, tripping and hitting the ground on his knees. He looked over at the face as it glared at him and clicked it's teeth. He kicked it away and scrambled across the asphalt.

His darkened vision spotted something nearby - something familiar... escape... a manhole cover. Faces lunged at him as he fought his way past, kicking and punching until he reached his goal. He forced off the lid and let himself slip inside.

He fell forever...

* * *


	4. 4

* * *

Donatello opened his eyes and lifted his head. The computer screen in front of him displayed the twisting geometric shape of his preferred screensaver. Preferred, that is, when it didn't happen to be the first thing he saw upon waking. He reached up and turned it off, rubbing his eyes with the other hand as he pushed himself away from the computer. 

_What the hell am I missing?_ he asked himself as he walked towards the door. He looked back over his shoulder at the alarm clock. _So much for staying up all night._

He walked into the kitchen, glancing towards the center of the room. Leo was sitting in one of the chairs with his arms folded across the tabletop, his face resting on them as he snored softly. Don sat down and nudged him.

"Hey, wake up," Don said as he leaned back.

Leo looked up and rubbed his eyes. "Mmm... what time is it?" he asked.

"Almost 6:30. Did Mikey come back yet?"

Leonardo shook his head. "I didn't hear him come in," he replied, resting his elbows on the table. "Any luck on the computer?"

Don tilted his head. "How'd you know I was on the computer?"

"Aren't you always?"

"Am I that predictable?"

"Yes," Leo said with half a grin.

"Well, I didn't find out anything else. Just that damn warning page."

"No news articles?"

"With the exception of one from four months ago about a guy getting shot there, nothing."

Don looked into Leo's eyes, knowing that he wanted to assemble the troops and go out in search of Michaelangelo. None of them knew where he was or what had happened to him that night three days ago - or why it had so affected him. The only one who would be able to clear any of it up was Mike and so far he had been less than forthcoming. Then, Mike did tend to take things to a much more emotional level than the others did - it could have been something trivial that set off the naive turtle's emotional alarm.

That's what Don wanted to believe.

-

Raphael woke to an abnormal silence and looked at the room around him, trying to adjust his sight past the blur of sleep. He stood, stiff from his night of sleeping on the couch, and stumbled his way to Michaelangelo's room. It was empty.

"Damn," he whispered. "Where the hell are you, kid?"

Leonardo sat at the kitchen table, staring into a cup of coffee that he held tightly in both hands. He looked up when Raphael entered and offered him a half-hearted grin that his brother did not reciprocate. Don was sitting across from Leo and eating an omelet with green specks in it that Raphael hoped was peppers and not something less appetizing.

"Hungry?" Don asked.

"Uh... no. I'll pass." Raph said as he sat down between the others. "Mike didn't come home last night."

Donatello nodded. "I know."

"It's Saturday, isn't it?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Mike never misses his Saturday morning cartoons."

"Maybe he thinks he's getting too old for them," Leonardo said. He could feel the weight of two sets of eyes glaring at him. "Sorry, guys," he said, taking a sip of coffee at long last.

"S'ok," Don told him.

Raphael let out a low growl and Leonardo could tell that his mind was racing - searching for possibilities and coming up with the worst-case scenario. That was what Raph did best - and it wasn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it was the worst-case scenario that actually played out, and Raphael was the one who was always ready for it.

"I'm going to take a shower," Leo said, standing suddenly. Raphael shot him a look that would have killed, had the acerbic turtle been gifted with that ability. "Then we'll go look for Mikey."

Leonardo left the kitchen in a haste and walked to the linen closet, pulling out a neatly-folded towel and then making his way to the bathroom. Five minutes - that was all he wanted: five minutes of peace and quiet under a hot shower. He tried so hard these days to be the best leader that he could be, tantamount to a father figure the times when Splinter was so far away. Sometimes he hated it, but he lived with it. He'd tell himself that there had to be someone they could turn to for guidance, he just wished that sometimes that person didn't have to be him.

Stepping into the bathroom he pulled the light cord, illuminating the small room and making the naked bulb swing back and forth, casting alternating shadows on the walls and fixtures. He tossed his towel onto the toilet tank and glanced quickly at his reflection in the mirror, unwilling to look himself in the eye. He groaned and turned away, stopping when he heard a noise from somewhere within the room; it sounded like breathing. He heard it again and turned towards the sound, walking silently around the tub. The sound of labored breathing grew louder, becoming a wheeze and then a choke. He launched himself around the tub and saw a dark figure cowering on the floor behind the old cast-iron tub.

"Mike..?" Leo asked as he stepped forward and reached down.

Michaelangelo recoiled and slapped Leo's hand away, falling into the light. His face was ashen and frozen in a terrified expression, the front of his coat stained brown with blood that still flowed from his mouth in a clotted stream. He moved himself backwards across the floor until his shell hit the wall then turned his face to the bricks and coughed. Leo slammed to his knees beside him and took hold of his shoulders, pulling him near. Mike fought him away weakly but finally fell into the embrace and looked up into Leonardo's eyes.

"**Don**!" Leo screamed, cradling his brother. "**Raphael! Get the hell in here! Now!**"

Mike tried to speak but Leo put his fingers to his lips.

"Ssshh..." he said softly. "Don't talk..."

The door swung open and the other two turtles charged in, Don coming to a sudden stop at the sight. Raphael ran full-steam into his brother's shell, sending them both to the floor in a living heap.

"Get the hell off me," Raph said, pushing Don away. He got his first look at Mike and gasped. "Jesus!"

Mike coughed again, bringing up stomach fluid with specks of blood.

"What the hell happened to him?" Raph demanded, taking hold of Mike's wrist and counting out the slow pulse.

"I don't know," Leo said, his voice cracking. He turned to face Donatello who was rubbing his chin and searching his mind. "Can we help him..?"

Don let out a breath and slid to Mike's side, putting his hand on his brother's head. "He's got a fever," he said, trying to remain as level-headed as possible. "He's burning up... we have to get him cooled down - **now**!"

"How?" Raphael asked.

Donatello pointed at the tub. "Fill it with cold water."

Raphael tore the shower curtain down and threw it to the other side of the room and then turned on the cold water. Leo rocked Mikey back and forth, trying to keep him calm as the others undressed him. Raph stepped into the tub as it filled to nearly the halfway point, the water was freezing.

"Damn!" he yelled, swishing his legs around, trying to warm them with the movement. The others lifted Mike in and Raph sat down in the icy water, guiding his brother's limp body.

"You don't have to be in there, Raph," Don said, turning off the faucet.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Ok, then lean him back."

Raphael did as he was instructed, resting Michaelangelo's head on his own shoulder. The others began to pour water over Mike's hot skin, he moaned and rolled his head to the side.

"No... no, hold still," Raphael said in his gentlest tone. He put his hand on Mike's cheek and began to guide his head back.

"Wait!" Donatello touched the back of Michaelangelo's neck softly. "He's been stabbed."

"With what?" Leonardo inquired, noting the small size of the hole.

"Off hand, I'd say a needle." His calm, studious tone did little to hide the worry that lingered behind his eyes. "Maybe with some drug... I don't know what."

Raphael closed his eyes and held his brother near. "Who the hell did this to him?" It was a question that could not be answered, but one that Raphael's anger demanded be asked. He rubbed his cheek against Mike's head and let out a shaky sigh. "Can we help him?" Raphael asked, opening his eyes. "We can help him... right..?"

Don put his hand on Mike's face. "We can try..."

* * *


	5. 5

April 27

Michaelangelo hadn't moved in nearly thirty hours, and Raphael's vigil had not ceased for a moment of that time. He was exhausted, worry-worn from his best friend's plight, but he refused to sleep or let one of the others take his place for even a few scant minutes. Leonardo stood in the doorway and watched as Raphael squeezed their suffering brother's hand.

Underneath the grief, though, lay anger. It was boiling and building up, waiting to burst through. Leonardo hoped that Raphael would be alone when it finally did escape him - otherwise someone might likely end up dead.

Leonardo jumped at a touch to his arm and looked over at Donatello.

"Anything yet?" Don asked.

Leonardo shook his head. "Nothing. Not one blink. You?"

"He has an infection in his throat, I've given him antibiotics," Donatello said in a low voice. "I still don't know what was in the needle. I can't..." he motioned for Leonardo to follow him into the other room, out of Raphael's earshot. "I can't find out anything unless I can get my hand on it," he said softly as they walked into the living room.

"Can't you do a blood test?"

"I did, it didn't help," Don said, sitting on the arm of the couch. "It could've been anything."

"Is he going to be okay?"

He hated to answer. "I don't know. He's been through a lot and I don't think that herpetologists have yet tested the effects of street drugs on a human-turtle hybrid." The sarcasm was out of character, but helped to drive home the point that Donatello truly didn't know if Michaelangelo was going to be alright - or even if he would ever wake up. "He's been through hell."

"I know," Leo sat on the coffee table and hung his head, staring down at his hands. "If I'd have made that decision quicker... this might not have happened."

"Hey... don't blame yourself for this. As a matter of fact, if we had headed out we might not have found him at all - and he'd have come home like he did and died on that bathroom floor before we ever got back. And if you hadn't gone in to take a shower..."

Leonardo looked up, understanding where his brother was leading. "Do you think he really would have died?"

"His fever was severe, if we hadn't gotten him cooled off his body might have shut itself down."

The explanation did little to assuage Leonardo of the guilt he felt, but it at least helped him to realize that his brother's survival was due in some relevant part to him. He stood and walked to Michaelangelo's room, closely shadowed by Donatello. Raphael finally slept, his head resting on Mikey's arm. Leo sighed and looked at Don.

"We should try to get some sleep, too." he suggested.

Donatello agreed with a quick nod and they went their separate ways, each towards his own room. Don swung his door so it nearly, but not quite, closed - he didn't want to miss any sound that Michaelangelo might make. His first few steps were towards his bed and sleep, but then he altered his course and goal, spinning around towards his computer. It was a loyal assistant - usually; lately it seemed that he couldn't get it to tell him anything aside from what he already knew. Of course, he also knew that the majority of computers were dumb, restricted to the programming that was given them - given them by human hands. And humans were fallible - and in the hacker's world, fallibility meant vulnerability. He typed in some commands and sat back, waiting. The computer beeped, flashing the words _search unsuccessful_ before his eyes.

"Shit! he yelled, pounding his fist down on the keyboard.

The computer screen wavered and his e-mail inbox popped up. It only took Donatello a second to develop a new plan - a decidedly illegal plan, but one that would hopefully lead to an answer to the question of what happened to Michaelangelo. His fingers set to work, flying over the keyboard at a lightning pace. Once he had an idea in his head he would not give up until he saw it through, and it was one very big idea, indeed.

Don stood up and rubbed his hands together as the computer hummed and beeped. He knew it would take a while... he was attempting to break into over a thousand e-mail accounts at once, searching for keywords that may lead to some clue to the now two mysteries surrounding Michaelangelo. As he walked to his bed and laid himself down he thought about the conversation that he and the others had taken part in two nights before. The words echoed back, taunting him.

_This is from the DEA,_ he heard himself say in his memory. _You don't suppose Mike's into something serious, do you?_

_No way, he's a good kid,_ Leo had said.

Donatello laid down on his bed and rolled onto his side, the connections were not looking good at this point in time. The deleted DEA document and the drug that had been forced into Mike's body - two incidents, both involving drugs. One had left Mike dejected, the other had left him nearly dead - and neither offered up any answers.

-

Raphael's eyelids fluttered, unsure as to what had woken him. He felt a touch on the back of his head and looked up, trying to focus on the green figure just inches from his nose.

"...Mike..?" he asked, still half asleep.

Raphael looked into the face of his brother, who was sitting up in bed, glancing around curiously. He opened his mouth and made a hissing sound as he attempted to speak.

"No, don't talk," Raphael said, jumping up and giving Michaelangelo a hug. "Are you okay? How are you feeling?" Raph pulled away, a tear soaking into his red mask. "Oh, yeah... I told you not to talk..." He leapt to his feet and ran for the door, yelling out for their other brothers before he even made it all the way. "Get the hell in here!" he bellowed. "**Don! Leo!** **C'mon!**"

In his bedroom, Donatello jerked awake, roused by sound of Raphael's excited voice. Without hesitating for a moment the turtle jumped out of bed and ran out his partially open door, nearly impacting with Leo as he did the same. They both swerved to avoid the other and veered off towards Michaelangelo's room, running inside and then up to the bed. Raphael was sitting on the edge, holding Mike's hand and smiling. Mike was awake and lucid - and very much alive.

Leo hugged his recovering brother who returned the embrace with a dazed look. "Oh, god... we were so worried about you." Leonardo said, touching Mike's cheek. He hugged him again, surprising Mike by the suddenness.

"Hey, hey..." Donatello said, smiling. "Save some for me." Leo let go and Don gave his brother a hug of his own. "Good to see you back with us, Mikey."  
Michaelangelo opened his mouth slamming it shut again when Raphael gave him a sidelong glance.

"I told him not to talk," Raph said.

"Good call," Don told him, sitting on the other side of the bed. He put his fingertips on either side of Mike's neck and felt around. "Open up."

Mike opened his mouth as wide as he could; his throat hurt and the back of his neck felt like it was one large bruise, so the extent of his gape was not very substantial. Don picked up a flashlight that Mike kept by his bed and shone it down the other turtle's throat, examining the swelling.

"You're going to have an infection for a while," Don said, letting Mikey close his mouth.

"I'm going to keep you on antibiotics - and you have to stick to soft food for a while." Mike's eyes grew wide. "That's right," Don said, flicking off the flashlight. "No pizza."

Michaelangelo mouthed the word damn.

"And no talking. **At all**."

Mike nodded and laid back, his energy spent. He looked at each brother's face smiling down at him. Their teeth were showing...

-

Don walked into his bedroom, happy for the first time in days. Mikey had fallen asleep again and was resting well; that made all of the others rest better, too. Donatello walked over to his computer and studied the screen. There were 376 possible matches to his inquiry. That was a lot of mail to go through. He considered tossing the search, letting it all be in the past. _The past - Mikey's past_. Don shook his head - regardless as to whether or not Mike was doing okay they still needed the answer. They still needed to know what was going on. His finger hovered over the delete button as he considered... wondered what would be best.

_Best for Mikey, or best for our curiosity?_ Don asked himself.

He thought about it for a long while, debating with his own logic - then he hit _enter._

-

**Japan**

April looked in the rearview mirror at Oyuki who sat silently in the back seat of their rental micro-van. She hadn't smiled very much since they arrived in country of her birth and April was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake to bring her along. After all, the place held few fond memories for the teen, she'd thought it all left behind when she moved to America with April and the others. Maybe it wasn't Japan in general, but where they had chosen to begin their journey: Hiroshima, the city that had seen the beginning of both Oyuki and Splinter's lives.

_It's too bad the voice of the present has to be such a sad one,_ April thought. She looked over at Splinter as he dozed peacefully in the left seat. _At least the past has a little peace of mind._

"How are you doing back there?" April asked Oyuki, trying to strike up a conversation that she knew would stumble out of the gate.

The young girl's eyes were focused out the window at the landscape that rushed by, "Fine. How long till we get to the hotel?"

"Three hours, traffic permitting. You bored?"

She shrugged. "A little, I guess."

"Maybe you should drop a line to Mikey, I'm sure he misses hearing from you."

_I miss him, too,_ she thought. April didn't know that Oyuki had already written Michaelangelo five letters and that none of them had yet made it into an envelope. For some reason each time she wrote one it seemed as if she had said too much or not enough, she didn't know what she wanted to tell him about how it felt to be back there. She didn't want him to know about a lot of things. She felt a pang of guilt holding it back, though. He was her friend, if there was anyone she could talk to about these things it was him - if there was anybody she could trust...

Trust had taken on hazy shades in her life; she'd trusted Hideki once, he took that trust and turned her into something she hated. She closed her eyes, remembering the hurt she'd felt when she was walking down the street and someone would yell out, _Yariman!_ They called her a whore, but Hideki was the only one that had ever slept with her. People passed judgment on something they did not understand, that they could not bring themselves to accept - she was a target for a general hatred, and somehow she had learned to accept that. Until she met her new family she never knew what it felt like to live with real trust, and now she was shutting out the one person that she trusted above all others.

"Maybe I **will **write to him," she said to April, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. She let the instrument hang over the first blue line as she wondered how to begin the letter. She sighed and began it exactly the same as she had the previous five:

_Hi, Mike,  
We are all fine here..._

* * *


	6. 6

_

* * *

May 1_

Michaelangelo woke suddenly and tried to scream as he pushed himself back, away from the gnashing teeth. Around him the faces faded and the voices stilled, returning the room to the safety and silence that had always been there. Mike pulled himself to his feet and made his way out his bedroom door, putting on a composed expression. He had done the same thing since he'd first woken from the incident - since the nightmares began. The hole in the back of his neck had begun to heal and his throat did not hurt quite so bad anymore - but the faces were growing nearer and their hisses more insistent. He could still remember them, each one as it came out of the darkness at him, biting and glaring into the back of his mind. He tried to shake off the images as he walked into the kitchen, joining his brothers at the breakfast table.

"Hey, kid!" Raph exclaimed.

Mike sat down and Leonardo pushed a bowl of oatmeal over to him; it was greeted with a sneer that read, _What, again?_

"Sorry, Mikey," Don said, taking a sip of coffee.

He rolled his eyes and took a reluctant bite.

Don watched his brother eat and marveled at how well he was recovering, he wasn't exactly back to his old self, but much better than they'd expected him to be so few days after nearly dying on the bathroom floor. The search Donatello had done on the computer had produced no real results and only a few brief glimmers of hope that had faded as soon as Don scrolled farther down on the documents. He had even come straight out and asked Mike what had happened, offering his computer to type the tale instead of speaking it - but his brother refused to answer. For now, Don had given up the search, happy with the fact that Mike was at least alive and back on his way to being himself. Maybe he would pick up the search later... if it began to matter so much again.

Mike sipped on his over-watery oatmeal and stuck out his tongue. It was so plain, he couldn't stand plain. He couldn't stand a lot of things lately, not the least of which was himself. He'd put on the face, pretend that all was well, let the others think that there was nothing wrong. He hated having them cater to him and pop into view whenever he had a cough, they didn't know that he wanted just to be alone. So he would show up at breakfast, eat, watch a little television, then disappear into his bedroom, acting as if he were tired and needed a nap. In his room he wouldn't sleep, each time he closed his eyes he could see those faces again, taste the blood at the back of his throat... watch the cop fall from the building. It was all starting to build up within him and it was all he could do to keep it hidden from his brothers.

Breakfast was quiet, as it had been these last few days. Nobody wanted to say much about what had happened nor did they want to start a lively conversation with Michaelangelo being unable to participate, so they just sat and stared at their food, fidgeting with their utensils and shifting in their seats within the uncomfortable silence. Raph finished his cereal and stood without a word, making his way to the sink and tossing his bowl in. He half-nodded at the others and then headed into the living room, picking up the remote control. The sounds of the morning news drifted into the kitchen, attracting the attention of the three remaining turtles. Leo looked at Don, who looked at Mike and motioned towards the living room with his head.

"Care to catch some TV?" he asked.

Michaelangelo shrugged half-heartedly, taking a last bite of oatmeal before he and the others stood and moved en mass to the sink and depositing their breakfast dishes. They strolled into the living room and joined Raphael on the couch; Don was the last one to get there, so he relegated himself to a spot on the floor rather than arguing about who should get a cushion. The news anchor rambled on about the weather and about how it was supposed to rain later in the week, he seemed quite amateurish compared to the great professionalism that April had always exuded when she worked for the station.

_"...We'll have the full forecast for you later," the anchor said, then pausing to change subjects. "An American oil tanker ran aground in Northern California last evening, causing a small spill. The U.S. Navy quickly moved in and was able to contain..."_

The turtles watched the news with little interest, each had too much on their minds - too much that lay close to home. Mike knew what some of it was; he knew it was he that they were concerned about, not some oil spill thousands of miles to the west. He didn't want them to be worried about him, he didn't even want them to think about him. Of course, the fact that he didn't want it did nothing to keep them from doing it. They were concerned... so damned concerned...

_"...police had first labeled the death as a hit-and-run, but they are now saying..."_ the newscaster said.

Mike returned his attention to the television.

_"...Fourteen-year-old Thomas Gregory was..."_

Mike jumped when a face appeared on the screen. It was one of the faces that had pursued him so relentlessly those few nights before - that evil, gnashing face... He held his breath and closed his eyes, willing it to go away. He opened his eyes again and the face was still there, just to the right of the newscaster; a smiling school portrait of a young teen who's face had been haunting the ninja's sleep.

_"...Neck was broken..."_

He was only hearing fragments of the report now, his mind and thoughts focused on the teenager - the murdered teenager. The face...

_"...Blood found at the scene has not yet..."_

...He ran into him...

_"...Does not belong to the victim..."_

...They fell... they both fell...

_"...Knife was also found..."_

...They both jumped up... Mike looked at the frightened face... it scared him...

_"...An open manhole..."_

...He reached out... he wrapped his hands around the kid's neck...

_"...Police are asking for any possible witnesses to..."_

...He twisted... he heard it snap...

_"...In sports news..."_

...The kid fell... Mike started to run... he tripped over him...

_"...New York Yankees..."_

...He kicked him in the head... crawled away... found a manhole...

Mike jumped to his feet, fighting for breath. His head was spinning.

"Mikey?" Don said, getting up off the floor and looking into his brother's eyes as they rolled back. "Mikey, what's wrong? What is it?"

Leo and Raph stood, one on either side of Michaelangelo. His knees buckled beneath him and he fell into their arms as darkness overtook him.

-

"What happened to him?" Raph asked as he and the others stood outside Mike's door.

Don sighed. "I don't know. We don't even know the effect that the initial attack had on him, there could be all sorts of aftereffects, and they could last for a very long time."

"So you're saying he could be like this forever?" Raph snapped.

"I'm saying," Don said, lowering his voice a notch in the hopes that Raphael would do the same, "that _I don't know_. There is no precedent for this."

"I thought you were supposed to be the smart one."

"Don't take it out on him, Raph," Leo said, a command tone in his voice. "This isn't anyone's fault, it just happened. When he wakes up we'll just be sure to keep things the least stressful as we can. Agreed?"

Raph stormed off, pushing his way past the others and into his own room, slamming the door.

Don looked at Leo and nodded. "I guess that means he agrees."

Leo balled his fist and then released it. "I swear, sometimes that guy just makes me nuts."

"Join the club." Don took a quick look in on Michaelangelo and then swung the bedroom door shut. "Let's let Mikey rest for a while."

They drifted towards their rooms without another word. Donny walked into his and resisted the urge to slam his own door as Raphael had done, but only because he didn't want to give Raph the satisfaction of knowing how much he had managed to anger the usually placid turtle. Don lowered himself into his computer chair and buried his face in the spread of his fingers. Didn't Raphael understand how much he was trying? He didn't like seeing Mike in this condition any more than Raphael did, but at least he was searching for answers, not throwing fits and casting blame.

_I thought you were supposed to be the smart one._ Don gritted his teeth, he said that to himself enough - he didn't need his brother's judgment, as well.

-

Mike woke with a gasp and sat up straight in his bed. His heart was pounding and his mind still projected his nightmares into the darkness of his bedroom, flashing images that flew at him in the lingering remnants of a dream. He dodged to the side and fell off the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. He scrambled to his feet and reached up for the light cord, feeling frantically through the air; he found the string and pulled on it, letting the cord snap back up and clink against the bulb.

_Damn!_ he thought, unable to verbalize the word._ Go away... just... just go away!_ He was tired of the images, of the sounds. The faces attacking him. That last face... the kid's face...

He slammed his fist into the concrete wall, breaking the skin on his knuckles. He looked at them and did it again and collapsed to his knees, doubling over. He held tightly to his stomach, physically ill.

_Jesus..._ he pounded his forehead on the floor. _Jesus Christ... I killed a kid... a goddamn kid!_

He rolled himself onto his shell, staring up at the ceiling. His throat burned and he coughed, which only made it hurt worse. He didn't want to hurt any more, he was tired of pain. The physical, the emotional. He was resisting it, fighting it; but the fighting seemed futile as each small effort made it that much harder to ignore. His eyes darted back and forth and he sat up, looking over towards his bed. His bed... there was something about his bed...

Mike crawled over to it and slid his hand between the mattress and box spring, finding that it was still there. He slowly pulled his hand out, watching with uncertainty as the bundle came into view. He stared at it and then looked over at his dresser where his coat lay, crumpled - thrown there carelessly by one of his brothers that evening - that night. It hadn't been washed, just tossed there - left and forgotten. His mind shifted back - he'd held the needle... put it in his pocket...

He closed his eyes and squeezed the plastic bag. He'd seen the reports, heard the warnings... he knew better. He was smarter than that. But he was strong. Physically he was stronger than an average human, he knew that. He could... maybe he could try... just a little. He'd heard that it would take away the pain; if he just tried just a little, just enough to see if it would work... he wouldn't get addicted. Humans were weaker, of course they couldn't resist it. He had a strong resolve. He could try it once and then... he wouldn't need it again...

_It hurts so damn bad..._ he said to himself, tears rolling from his eyes. _Shit... why does it have to hurt so bad..?_

* * *


	7. 7

* * *

The evening passed without a word between brothers, each only emerging from their rooms in the dawning of the day. They drifted into the kitchen again, it seemed to be the place that they spent the most time together these days. Don was sitting at the table and looked up when he heard Mike's door squeak open. It was nice to see him up on his feet again, and seemingly none the worse for wear. He actually looked a little better as he stretched and he walked into the kitchen, smiling. Don couldn't remember the last time he had seen his brother really smile. Mike pointed at his mouth and held his hand out, palm-up. 

"Hungry?" Leonardo asked from where he stood at the stove. "Want some oatmeal?"

Mike put his finger in his mouth and mock-gagged himself.

"How 'bout some grits, then?" Raphael asked, sitting down and throwing a huge spoonful of butter on his own hominy.

Michaelangelo smirked and walked to the freezer. The others watched with curiosity as their brother rooted through the variety of frozen food within.

"Hey, hey!" Don admonished. "Soft food only, remember?"

Mike shut the freezer and turned around, a half-gallon of ice cream in his grip. He grabbed a spoon off the dish rack on his way to the table and flopped down into an empty seat. Smiling, he began to shovel the ice cream into his mouth.

The other three shared a look and a smile, it certainly seemed as if Mikey was returning to his old self. Donny sat back and sipped on his coffee, focusing his eyes on the rapidly-vanishing frozen treat. He didn't know what had caused this sudden shift in attitude, but he was glad it had finally arrived. Don leaned back farther - a bit too far. His chair tipped back and he crashed onto his shell, his coffee cup flying from his fingers and clattering to the floor - the brown liquid quickly soaked into the concrete.

"Score one for ninja reflexes," Raphael said, reaching down and offering his embarrassed brother a hand up. Don took the offer but stuck his tongue out. "Ooh, snappy comeback," Raph said sarcastically.

Donatello put the chair upright and sat down, looking over at Leo who was stirring his still-cooking oatmeal and smiling despite himself.

"_Et tu_, Leo?" Don joked.

Don shifted his gaze to Mike. The other turtle's expression had fallen and he was absent-mindedly dipping his spoon into his softening ice cream.

"What's wrong, Mikey?" Donatello asked, leaning over and picking up the miraculously unbroken coffee cup.

Mike looked up suddenly, as if the sound of his own name had surprised him. His spoon fell to the table and melted ice cream spattered across the top. He looked at the mess and then into each of his brothers' faces, one-by-one. He sighed and waved his hand as he stood, returning the ice cream to the freezer and throwing the spoon into the sink as he walked silently out of the room.

"Now what's wrong?" Leo asked, turning off the stove and pouring his oatmeal into a bowl. He sat down in the seat Mike had just vacated and grabbed some maple syrup, pouring it over the steaming cereal. "It looked like he was doing better, what just happened here?"

"Got me," Don said, leaning his elbows on the table.

Raph shrugged. "It's going to take him a while to get over it all the way, that's all. Give it time."

He looked at their faces. They didn't believe him. He didn't, either.

-

Mike pushed his door shut and latched it, resting his forehead on it for a few seconds before making his way to his bed and flopping down. He hadn't needed to see that - but he did. He saw him fall back, he heard him hit the ground. Donnie... the cop - he saw them both. He knew it was Don that fell back in the kitchen, but it was the cop's face that was superimposed over his brother's body. A flash of light revealed the young boy's frightened features. Again - it was beginning to hurt again.

Michaelangelo reached under his mattress and pulled out the needle and bundle, he gritted his teeth and balled his fist around them. No, he wouldn't do it again. He had been stupid to try it the first time, he wouldn't do it again. Not again. He threw the drugs and syringe across the room and they bounded off the wall, coming to rest in plain sight on the floor. He stared at them for a few seconds then leaned over the side of his bed, picking up a pile of books that he kept there for late-night reading. He threw them on top of the damning objects so he wouldn't have to see them, so he couldn't look over and watch as he was taunted by them. He buried his face into his pillow and bit down on the fabric.

He wouldn't do it again, no matter how much it hurt. He could take the pain, he was strong. He wouldn't...

He looked up at the pile of books and could just see the corner of the plastic bag sticking out from under one of them. He turned his face away and then looked back, it seemed closer now, almost to the point where he could reach out and touch it. But he wouldn't, he didn't need it, he...

...he hurt...

-

**Two weeks later  
May 15**

Raphael readied himself for the attack... he loved this stuff. A green foot flew at his head and he dodged out of the way, grabbing Donatello by the ankle and throwing him towards a wall. Don spun in mid-air and launched himself off the bricks, aiming his foot for his brother's midsection. Raphael parried but Don countered with an elbow to his face, sending him tumbling to the blue practice mat.

Leonardo clapped once and held up a hand. "This round's to Don," he announced. "That's two-to-two. Next round wins."

Raphael growled under his breath as he stood and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He pointed at Don and smiled crookedly. "You're mine, _tentori-mushi_."

"Heh... I may be a bookworm, but I'm still gonna' kick your ass."

Raph sneered and bowed to Don, who returned both gestures. Leo clapped again and the two opponents attacked at once. Raph went into a flying kick which his brother was easily able to duck beneath. Don spun around to strike but Raphael was not behind him, where he should have landed. There was a noise above his head and he looked up as the other ninja swung down on a climbing rope and contacted his surprised brother with a foot to the mouth. Don fell back onto his rear and Raph soared off the rope, laughing as he landed.

"You should have seen the look on your face!" he said, giving Don a hand up.

"You cheated."

"There's a difference between cheating and fighting dirty," Leo said, shrugging. "The move was legal, if underhanded. Round to Raphael."

A smug expression crossed Raph's face as he and Don bowed again to one another. "Better luck next time."

"My turn."

The three looked towards the door on the other side of the room when they heard Mike's rough voice. His throat was well on it's way to healing and he had been speaking for a week, even though Don had instructed him that it would be best if he kept verbalizations down to a minimum. That instruction was quickly ignored in the ill-tempered manner that had become Mike's trademark recently.

"Hey, kid," Raph said. "Care to rumble with the winner?"

"You know it," Mikey said, stepping onto the mat.

Leonardo wasn't sure if this was a good idea; Mike hadn't been exercising lately and it had been over a month since his last sparring session. He was out of practice and still a little weak - and Raphael had never been one to pull punches.

"Maybe you should do some warm-ups first."

Mike glared at him. "What, Leo? You don't think I can take it?"

"I didn't say that."

"The hell you didn't," he looked over at Don. "I suppose you think I should go play it safe somewhere, too."

Donatello pursed his lips. Mike's attitude was beginning to rival Raphael's, who's own had strangely eased back. At first the guys had made concessions, taking a cautious approach to Mike's volatile mood shifts in the hopes that they would end as his body healed itself. But they just grew stronger, his attitude changing like New England weather each time one of his brothers came near. He refused to participate most of the time - he hadn't even put on his mask or belt or pads once in the past month.

"Do whatever you want to," Don said, his tone angrier than he'd have liked. He sat down on a bench and crossed his arms.

Mike looked at Leo and tilted his head, waving his hand towards Donatello. "See, there you have it: the genius says I can fight," he said in a cocky voice. "Now, if you don't mind..."

Leonardo nodded reluctantly and the combatants bowed to one another, he clapped and the round began.

"Just don't try that rope shit with me," Mike told Raph, taking a stance. He jumped forward, aiming his kick for the knee.

Raphael side-stepped and the other turtle flew past, landing on his feet and pulling himself into a roundhouse kick bound for his brother's head. Raph tilted back and grabbed Mike's foot as it passed within an inch of his face then looped his foot behind Mike's knee, making the turtle fell onto his shell. Leo clapped his hands together, signaling the end of the all-too-short fight.

"Round to Raphael," he said.

Mike scrambled to his feet and started walking towards the door without a word. Raph grabbed him by the arm gently.

"Hey, take it easy," Raphael said. "It's just a session, don't take it personal."

Mike spun around with his fist, connecting with his brother's eye in an enthusiastic, yet ultimately pathetic punch. It didn't hurt, but Raphael flinched and let go and Michaelangelo stormed out the door without looking back. When he was gone Raph turned to the others, they each had an expression that asked what, exactly, had just happened.

"What did** I** do?" Raph asked.

Don shrugged. "What has** any** of us done to him lately? He's just mad at the world."

"I've got to hand it to you though, Raph: you've been behaving yourself ," Leo said.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice, one of me is enough around here."

"Has anyone tried talking to him?" Donny asked.

The room fell silent as they all felt a little embarrassed at the fact that none of them had said more than a few words to him. The times they **had** tried to speak to him he tuned them out, staring past them or walking away while they spoke. He wanted them to leave him alone, so they did.

"I'm going to go... you know," Raph motioned towards the door with his head. "Try and talk to him."

"Good luck," Leo sighed as his brother headed out the door.

Don looked over at Leo and blinked. That said enough.

-

Mike closed his eyes as he pulled the needle out of his arm. He was beginning to feel better again, he wasn't so mad at Raphael anymore. He laid down on the floor and enjoyed the sensation of a thousand fingers crawling over his skin, soothing away the ache. It had been so hard to draw up the courage to do it at first, but it had gotten a little easier each time. He didn't feel guilty about doing it any more - it helped, it made the pain go away for a while. Of course, the pain would return - but then he would do it again. No problem, he could handle it. He hadn't known that it would be so easy just to make everything feel better. He smiled to himself, he didn't know why people said that it was addictive, he didn't need to do it, he could stop doing it if he wanted to - he just didn't want to. It wasn't hurting him, it wasn't going to kill him... he had it all under control...

There was a knock at the door. He didn't care.

"Mike? You in there?"

_Who's that? Raphael?_

"Look, Mike... I'm sorry about the fight."

_Fight?_

"Can I come in? I want to talk to you."

"So, talk," Mike said, getting to his knees and laughing. He picked up the needle and zip-locked bag and put them in the toilet tank, a good enough place for the time being. He'd put it back under his bed later. He liked having it under his bed...

"I mean face-to-face."

"Go find someone else's face, mine's busy," Mike reached into the tub and turned on the hot faucet, lifting the lever that activated the shower. He stepped under the scalding water and shivered. It felt good

"I'm serious, Mike!" .

Michaelangelo put his head under the water... a thousand fingers...

Raph knocked on the door and the knock turned into a pound. There was a pause and then a loud crash as Raphael kicked through the wood and stormed into the bathroom. He threw open the curtain and steam billowed out of the shower stall.

"C'mon in, the water's fine," Mike joked.

Raphael put his hand under the water and pulled it out, yelling, "Shit! What the hell are you trying to do to yourself, Mike?" He turned off the shower and pulled his brother out by the arm. Mike laughed as Raph pushed him to sitting on the closed toilet lid and began toweling him off.

"Wazza'matter, you never took a hot shower before?"

"That was insane, Mike... real fucking insane!" Mike tried to stand but Raph pushed him back onto the seat. "I'm not done with you!"

"C'mon, what's the problem here? I wanna' take a nap, I'm tired," Michaelangelo mumbled.

Leo and Don appeared in the smashed doorway and eyed the other two curiously.

"What happened?" Leo asked.

"Beavers," Mike said, laughing again. "Big fucking beavers - they love the taste of bathroom doors."

"He was taking shower - hot water only," Raph said, ignoring Mike's misplaced humor. "Don, c'mere and take a look at him, will you?"

Donatello walked up and put his hand on Mike's arm, it was hot and there was a brown-red tinge to the skin. "It looks like a first-degree burn - like a sunburn."

Leonardo stepped up to Mike and kneeled down, looking him in the eye. "What were you thinking?"

"I needed a shower."

"You're going to need more than a shower by the time I get done with you," Raph said.

Leo stood and grabbed Raph and Don by their arms, leading them to the opposite end of the room.

"Okay, that's the limit," he said. "Don, do you have **any** idea why he's acting like this?"

Don didn't want to answer but forced himself to, anyway. "All I can figure is that the attack left him with permanent neural damage. Unfortunately there's no way to tell. No yet, anyway."

"Then when?" Raph pressed.

"I can't say."

Leo rubbed his chin and looked over at Mike, who was rocking back and forth and humming. "We're going to have to keep a close eye on him."

"You mean we have to stay with him all the time?" Raph asked.

"No, just stay alert. He won't get any better if we smother him."

Raphael didn't say what he was thinking; he had his own theory and it didn't have anything to do with neural damage. But so far he had no proof, just observations and half-forgotten lessons, it wasn't enough yet - he couldn't tell the others what he thought, not without hurting Mike with the accusation. He stared at his brother, who looked up at him and grinned.

"What about that search you were doing a couple weeks back, Don?" Leo asked. "Did anything ever come of that?"

"Nothing."

"Maybe you should look again. Something new could have developed since then."

Donatello nodded. "I'll get right on it."

Leo turned to Raph. "Take Mike to his room and make him lie down," he instructed.

Raph rubbed his eyes. "I'm not so sure he'll go to sleep."

"That doesn't matter, I want him to settle down."

"Easier said than done."

Leonardo looked at the shattered door at their feet. "I'm going to clean this up and then I'll help you with the search, Don."

"I can use all the help I can get."

Mike was sitting still now, staring at the floor. Raphael looked at his face and saw a tear in the corner of his reddened eye. Another mood shift, another attitude... another piece of evidence that Raphael wished he could ignore.

_

* * *

_


	8. 8

* * *

"What about this?" Leo asked, pointing at an e-mail message that the search had pulled up. "It says _official_..."

"Uh-uh," Don interjected. "I already checked that one, it's about a zoning ordinance..."

Leo sat back and rubbed his aching head. "We've been at this for hours," he said. "What say we give it a rest?"

"...Hmm?" Don said, paying more attention to the computer than to his brother. "You go ahead, I'm going to go through a few more."

"How can you look at that screen for so long without getting a headache?"

"Who says I don't get one?"

Leonardo smiled. "You kidding? You have the time of your life on that thing."

"Not always. Not now."

"Me, neither," he stood and began walking towards the door. "Good luck."

Donatello's eyes widened as he stared at the screen. "Leo, wait!"

Leonardo trotted back to the computer. "What? What is it?"

"Pay dirt," Don said excitedly. "Check this out, it's an unsecured e-mail - a letter from someone in the DEA to someone in a local police precinct."

"And..?"

"And listen, there was a DEA agent by the name of Phillip Mowrey who was under investigation by the agency for stealing and selling evidence."

"In other words: drugs. Right?"

"Right. Anyway, they were checking him out and were just about to gather enough evidence to pound him hard, they had a sting set up at Harlan Avenue..."

"That's two blocks from Broad Street," Leo observed.

"...And it was cut short by the appearance of a _wild card_, whom Mowrey pursued away from the scene."

Leonardo took a deep breath. "You don't think the _wild card_ was who I know you think it was..." he said, knowing full well that the statement made no sense.

Don kept reading. "It goes on to say that Mowrey was found dead on Broad after two gunshots were heard by local residents. Apparently he either fell or was thrown from the rooftop of a building there. His jacket and wallet were missing. Along with the evidence."

"It was Mike, wasn't it? He came home that night with a jacket."

"I remember. But he was upset, he didn't want to talk or eat dinner or anything. If he did it then it must have been an accident."

"Then he probably doesn't know the whole story. He probably found the badge and thought the worst."

Don averted his eyes from the screen. "The evidence was missing, too."

"Wait," Leo straightened up and pointed at his brother. "You aren't suggesting that Mikey..."

"I didn't say that. But we have to consider the possibility," Don replied.

"Mikey is smarter than that," Leo was getting angry at the thought of their little brother perhaps resorting to such things, Splinter had raised them wisely. "Besides, his problems didn't really start until a few nights later, remember? The bathroom?"

"The events could be related," Don said.

"I don't think so," Raphael's voice came from the doorway. He had been standing there from almost the exact time that Don had called Leo back to the computer, so he'd heard the entire story. The others turned to look at him as he walked in and sat on Don's bed. "Mike's asleep. Finally."

"What were you saying about what happened?" Don asked, spinning in his swivel chair to face Raph.

"I mean that he looked depressed that night when I followed him into the city. He just wanted to be alone, he wasn't going out to meet anybody. Whatever happened to him that night was unrelated."

"How can you be so sure?" Leo asked.

Raphael glared at him. "I'm not a hundred-percent sure, but there is something to be said for trust, you know. Don't you guys trust him?"

Don and Leo looked at one another and then both lowered their eyes to the floor. "We trust him," Leo said. "But like you said about being a hundred percent sure..."

Raph shook his head and changed the subject. "Do you think we should tell him what you found out?"

"I don't know, you think he can handle it right now?" Leo asked.

"Guys, I'm thinking that this can't have been what kicked off all of this," Don said, pointing at the computer and changing the conversation once again. "Raph, I think you're right. This was relatively minor, the big thing we should be looking for is what happened the night he was attacked."

"And what about the missing drugs?" Leo asked.

Raphael turned his eyes away. "I'll see if I can find anything in his room," he said quietly. "But I'm telling you, he doesn't have them. He's not that type."

Don steepled his fingers. "I'll set up another search - see what I can find about that night."

"In the meantime," Leo said, "we'll not mention what we found out. In case it was related. Okay?"

Raph and Don nodded and Raphael stood, walking out of Don's bedroom and into his own. He sat down on the bed and rubbed his temples. This was all getting to be a living hell and none but Mike knew what was going on; not that Mike was in a rush to reveal what it was. These incidents... Michaelangelo's sudden self-destructive behavior... none of it made any sense. He had always been so open and honest, almost to a fault at times... now, the silence...

Mike had always been so able to speak with a look, to talk without saying a word. The way he held his eyes, that silly childish grin, the subtle way that he shifted his posture - they all said something, speaking volumes on the rare occasion in which Mike chose not to talk aloud. But not now. His whole self had become silent. His voice... Raph missed his brother's whole voice.

He glanced around his room, looking for nothing in particular, but looking nonetheless. He needed something to get his mind off of this, to distract him for a little while. He had been putting forth an effort to control his temper in the midst of this tragedy, otherwise he might just have gone out and picked a fight - not a healthy prospect for whomever he decided to do so with. But he wouldn't, he had to secure himself - for Mikey's sake if for nobody else's. He looked over at his nightstand where a book lay, borrowed and forgotten. A few months past he had asked Mike for something to read to help him get to sleep, what Mike provided was a book of verse. Raph had flipped through the pages and decided that he was not so desperate to sleep as he had thought he was, so he put the book there - where it stayed. The cover was unreadable now; there were brown stains from where he had spilled a can of Pepsi and holes where he had mindlessly pricked it with the tip if a knife in a fit of boredom. He had even sketched a little stick-figure with a shell fighting with another stick figure - the shelled one was winning, of course.

Raph picked up the book and turned the pages one-by-one, ripping some of them where they had become fused together by the soda. He saw unfamiliar names and foreign titles that he could not have read out loud if he needed to, a few pages held more recognizable names like Shakespeare and Shelley. He came to a dog-eared page and paused, curious. He glanced up and down the page and saw a little pencil-drawn X next to a verse, the name beside it was Tsuboi Shigeji, another person that Raphael had never heard of. He read the poem softly, loud enough so that only he could hear.

_"I may be silent, but  
I'm thinking  
I May not talk, but  
Do not mistake me for a wall."_

He felt a lump rise to his throat and fought it back down. Why, months before, had Mike chosen to mark that particular verse? He wondered if there really was a trace of his brother left somewhere behind the wall, beyond the silence...

* * *


	9. 9

* * *

"C'mon, why are you doing this?" Mike asked, trying to wriggle away from Donatello's grip on his wrist.

"Just hold still," Don said in an exasperated tone.

He'd been trying to take Mike's pulse for the better part of five minutes and the moody turtle's efforts to stop him had been more than merely annoying. He still had a few more things to check out on Mike, partly out of the desire to see how he was faring, but mostly out of the need to get him out of his room - so Raphael could do what needed to be done there. Donatello felt guilty about it, but it had been his idea to do the examination in order to provide the needed spying time.

So far Mike was doing pretty well - physically at any rate. Mentally he was still on the edge, floating somewhere between the waking and dreaming worlds. The problem was that he preferred to dream his life now, living as if it didn't matter if he woke up. That was beginning to hurt his brothers deeply, but not so much as the fact that they could find no way to help him out of the pit. Don hated thinking of that one possibility, the one that spoke of Mike doing this to himself.

_He's not that kind,_ Don repeated to himself. _Mike's smart, he knows better..._

"How does your skin feel today?" he asked, touching the spots on Mike's head that had been burned the worst the day before.

Mike swatted his hand away. "Fine, fine... I'm good. Hey, I'm hungry... am I allowed to eat,_ boss_?"

Donatello looked up towards the door and saw Raphael standing there, his arms folded across his chest.

"Yeah, you can eat," Don said, backing away.

Mike jumped off the table and saluted Donatello, laughing as he walked towards the door. Raph stepped aside, letting his brother pass.

"Well?" Don asked when Mike was gone.

Raph looked out the door and then shut it. "Nothing," he said, pulling himself up onto the examination bed. "I tore his room apart. There's nothing in there."

Donatello let out a relieved sigh. "See, I told you."

"**I** told **you**," Raph said. He let his eyes scan the floor. "But... I dunno..."

"What?"

"You know... I hate to say it, but I was... I almost hoped that... I mean, at least if that had been what was wrong it was something we could have controlled. I mean, we could have stopped him, done something for him."

"I know," Don said, leaning against the bed and copying his brother's floor-staring. "But now we have to look for other possibilities."

"Like your _permanent neural damage_ theory?"

He nodded. "One of a few."

"How did his exam go?"

"His pulse is fast, his eyes are having difficulty focusing, his skin is still hot from his shower last night..."

"...And?"

"And I have no idea what is wrong with him."

Raph put his hand on Donatello's shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll be able to figure it out. You're the smart one, remember?"

Don looked at the small smile on his brother's face and smiled back. That same statement had angered him a couple weeks before but now it was strangely comforting. Raphael meant it this time, he knew that if anyone could divine a solution it would be Donatello. Don only wished that he could be so sure himself.

-

Mike walked into the bathroom and shut the sheet that Leo had hung in the place of the smashed door. He looked at the tiny flowers against the stark white cotton and half-grinned.

_So masculine_, he thought, giggling.

He lifted the top of the toilet tank and pulled out what he had left there the night before and looked it over, thankful that the zip-locked bag had not leaked. That hadn't been the best place to put it and for most of the day he had been trying to remember where, exactly, he had hidden it. It had finally occurred to him when Don was checking out the burns on his head.

Burns? He didn't feel any burns. He touched the top of his head and shrugged, peeking out from behind the sheet before heading to his room. He shoved the bundle and needle back under his mattress - where he would remember it next time.

_Next time?_ he thought. He pulled the objects back out and stared at them a for a few seconds. He was running low, running out. That was okay, he wouldn't need it much longer, he'd give it up as soon as he didn't have any left. Then he'd be fine. He began to chew on his thumb. Maybe, though... maybe he could find a place to get some more - just in case he needed it. He wouldn't need it, but if he did... yes, he was sure he could find a place to get some more.

And if he did that meant that he wouldn't have to worry about using it all up - he could have some now, that way he wouldn't have to worry about the pain showing up when he wasn't ready for it. It did that sometimes, showed up when he was eating or doing something else and it would make him angry. His brothers got mad at him when he did that - he didn't want them to be mad at him. He'd do it for them, so they wouldn't get mad. That would make them happy...

* * *


	10. 10

* * *

Leonardo walked into Don's lab, smiling and waving two envelopes in the air.

"Guess what, guys!" he announced. "Letters from Japan!"

Raph and Don were standing beside one another in the center of the room, each with his arms folded across his chest. They were quiet, contemplative... Leo wondered if they had even heard him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, lowering the letters and his voice.

Don sighed and shrugged. "Nothing... really."

"Oh. Well, then..." he paused, remembering what Don and Raph had planned to do while he was out checking April's mail. "How's Mikey doing?"

"Fine, as far as I can tell."

He crossed his arms the same as the others and faced Raphael. "And how about the... uh..."

"Nada," Raph said. "There wasn't anything in his room."

A relieved expression crossed Leo's face. "That's good." He looked at the others' considerably less than relieved faces. "Right?"

"Could be," Don said. "Or not... we don't know yet."

"What do you mean?"

"He means," Raphael interjected, "that if it isn't drugs doing this shit to Mike it has to be something else - like brain damage or something like that."

Don nodded at Raphael's correct, though less than accurate observation. "There really isn't much that we can do at this point in time except watch and wait."

Leonardo unfolded his arms and looked at the letters. "Maybe this'll help," he said, holding out one of them.

"From Oyuki?" Raph took the letter and stared at the front - it was postmarked two weeks prior. "Took a long time getting here, didn't it?"

"It had a long way to go. This other one's for all of us, from Splinter."

"Open it," Raph said.

"Let's get Mikey first."

The other turtles shared a look.

"I'm not sure if he's gonna' wanna' hear it," Raph said.

Leonardo straightened his already impeccable posture and tightened his jaw, he didn't like what he was hearing. "Listen to yourselves," he said. "This is Mike we're talking about, not some stranger."

"In case you haven't noticed, Mike has been a stranger lately," Raph said. "He isn't himself..."

"All the more reason to include him."

Leo was right; Mike was still a part of the family, a brother... they didn't have the right to shut him out just because of his attitude. Besides, it might just serve to lighten his mood...

Leo knocked on Michaelangelo's door and waited for a response. He could hear soft snoring coming from within and pushed it open, glancing in on his sleeping brother. He stepped up quietly and nudged him.

"Mike..." he whispered. "Hey, Mike... wake up."

Michaelangelo grunted and rolled, looking at Leo for a few seconds before closing his eyes again. Leonardo sighed and shook him a little harder.

"Hey, we got letters from Japan," he said. "One from Splinter and one from Oyuki... well, that one's just for you."

"Hmm?" Mike was still mostly asleep. _Oyuki..? Is she back..?_

"You want to come out and read the letter from Splinter?"

"...No..."

"You sure?"

"Mmm -hmmm..."

Leonardo stood and took a deep breath. He had at least tried to rouse Mike - more than the others had wanted to do. He started walking towards the door. "Okay, get some rest."

"...Leo? Hey..."

Leonardo turned back around. "Yeah?"

"..Oyuki..?"

He held out his hand and Leonardo looked in his own, noticing that the letter was still there.

"Oh. Hey, sorry about that," he said, pressing the letter into Mike's palm.

Mikey laid the envelope on his chest and closed his eyes again, smiling. Leo smiled, too... maybe it would help, after all.

-

"Is Mikey coming out?" Don asked as Leo walked into the kitchen.

"No, he's sleeping."

Raphael was sitting on the counter with Splinter's opened letter in his hands. "Well, you want me to read it?"

Leo nodded as he sat down beside Don. "Go ahead."

Raph cleared his throat and began to read -

_"My sons,_

_I hope this letter finds you all well. April, Oyuki and I have gotten some good footage, although the weather has not been as accommodating as we had hoped it would be. It rained for most of the time we spent in Hiroshima, so we did not get as much filming time in that city as we had planned. We hope to make up for it in the other cities we are going to travel to._

_I expect this letter will reach you in two weeks time, at that point we should be in the vicinity of Fuji. I will take some photographs, though I will probably not get the film developed until our return to the United States._

_I will end this letter now, as I am scheduled to perform narration during our first filming in Kobe this afternoon. As always, my heart is with you, my sons._

_Splinter"_

The turtles sat back in silence when Raphael had finished reading. Splinter tended to write short letters, but they were always to the point. He only ever said that which truly needed saying. It was enough. They all wished they could tell him, too, what was going on in their lives - maybe somehow he would be able to help... if they only had some way of letting him know.

* * *


	11. 11

_

* * *

-_

_**Yokosuka, Japan**_

"Ah, if only I could have gone up one more time," Splinter said after he swallowed a mouthful of yakisoba.

He looked at the photo of Fuji and sighed, remembering the days when a climb up the dormant volcano wasn't in the company of hundreds of strangers, but a solitary pursuit. His first trek up the mountain had been when he was no older than his own sons were now, and it had been made alone with no other gear but a walking stick and a heavy winter jacket.

The modern climb, however, was a commercial bonanza, with shops to buy food and souvenirs and have industry-created walking sticks burned with stamps at each station for several hundred yen apiece. These days the trails were marked and set with chain guides so that anybody who experienced vertigo would not be in any danger of falling down the mountain, there were even wooden benches to sit on in order to enjoy the view - what view that could actually be seen through the clouds. It was almost laughable, how a sacred place such as Fuji had been turned into a tourist destination and status-maker, for who would want to leave Japan without saying that they had climbed the mountain? There were still those who went with a definite spiritual purpose, but the unfortunate commercialism had dwindled that number down to a very few dedicated souls.

"Maybe we can go up next time we're here," April suggested.

Splinter grinned. "Perhaps."

They had driven by the mountain the day before and took some photos in passing, but had not stopped. They were already somewhat behind schedule because of the weather and a day trip up the mountain would have set them too far behind. So now they were in their tiny hotel room in the city of Yokosuka, one of the Japanese cities that held an American Naval base. The rooms were relatively reasonably priced, if just as small as the inside of the micro-van they had rented. So far they had only been staying at the small ones, mostly because of their meager budget. April was thankful that none of them were unduly modest, having to share such close quarters. It was actually quite an adventure, trying to figure out who would sleep where in the seven-by-twelve-foot room. One night in Nara, Splinter and April had even woken to find Oyuki asleep in the exceptionally deep, dry bathtub - she was wrapped up in a big wool blanket. The next morning she explained to them that April was a bed-hog and kept nudging her towards the edge. That was the last time they had seen Oyuki smile.

April looked across the bed at the teen. She was quiet, staring down into her take-out and fidgeting with her hashi. She hadn't eaten a bite - perhaps in days.

"You okay?" April asked.

"Hmm?" Oyuki looked up. "Yeah, I'm just not very hungry. Too long on the road, I guess."

"I know what you mean," she replied. "It does get little tiring. But, hey! If you wanna' pay the bills..."

Oyuki stood up off the bed and walked over to the window, looking out at the city. They were on the eighth floor and were directly across from Yokosuka Naval Base, so there was a lot to look at. But she didn't really want to look at it, she was still kicking herself mentally for the letter she had written to Mike. She knew she had worded it coldly, but that hadn't stopped her from sending it. She wished it** had** stopped her, like it had stopped her from sending the first five. For some reason this one she let slide. She'd started the letter by telling Mike about how it felt to be back in Japan, but then shifted to how she had met up with Hideki. She couldn't believe she had done that - Mike probably thought she was the coldest person he had ever known.

_God, I miss you, Mike..._ she thought. _I hope you don't get that damn letter._

-

_**New York**_

Mike rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the envelope in front of him. He tried to remember where it had come from... someone had brought it to him. He looked past blurry eyes at the name on the front. He smiled. She had written to him - like she had promised. He tore the envelope open and traced the cursive writing with his eyes, trying to make sense of the swirls and twists. It made him almost dizzy.

_Hi, Mike_

_We're all fine here. Splinter has been showing us some of the sights and explaining the history of Japan in detail on film - I think we'll be editing most of that out, though..._

Mike smiled wider, he was happy to hear that they were all doing well.

_It was weird being back in Hiroshima. I never really wanted to go back, but being there made me realize a few things about myself. I ran into an old boyfriend of mine there and we spent some time together. He said he missed me. I think I missed him, too, a little..._

Mike put the letter down without finishing it, his had smile faded to a deep frown and he began to wring his hands. Old boyfriend, he thought. ...She missed him... He rubbed the back of his neck, touching the tiny lump that was the only physical indication left of the hole that had been there. He squeezed his neck until it began to cramp up and then released it, letting the dull ache work it's way down to the muscles of his back.

_She doesn't miss me,_ he thought. _What the fuck was I thinking? I bet she had fun with him... probably went out to an arcade and played games and won toys from the crane machines... She's got... him. Whoever. Shit..._

Mike picked up the letter and released it in the air, letting it float to the floor. He rubbed his shoulder where it had begun to throb, he wondered why it was hurting... not that it mattered. Not that he cared.

He stood slowly, but then he was overcome. He felt the muscles in his chest constrict and he fell to his knees, clutching his plastron above his heart as he fought for the air that was being stolen out of his lungs. He took in a deep breath, then another as he searched past the pain, looking for an out - looking for the needle. He couldn't get his hand between the mattress and box spring, he couldn't see where they met... he couldn't do this alone...

"...Leo..." he breathed softly, trying to draw in enough air to yell, "...help... Don... please, Raph..."

He forced himself to his feet and took a wobbly step towards the door. _No... I can't... they can't... know..._ He pressed his hand to his chest harder and spun, lunging at his bed. The force of his impact sent the mattress falling to the floor and the bundle and syringe slid out. He collapsed to his knees again and picked them up. His shoulder was beginning to hurt worse... he'd never felt that before... he didn't have to feel it now...

* * *


	12. 12

_**May 27**_

_  
_Leonardo stared at the television blankly, not really paying attention to anything that was being said or sold. He looked over at Donatello, who was working on the crossword puzzle at the back of the TvGuide. He was doing it in pen - Leo could never do the crossword puzzle in pen. Then again, he couldn't answer half of the questions, either. He wished he had the confidence in himself that Don had, to just be able to put something down firmly without worrying whether he was going to have to erase it somewhere down the road. Letter-to-letter... word-to-word... puzzle solved. If only it were that easy. Leo couldn't believe the difficulty he was having holding his family together in Splinter's absence.

_What would Sensei do in this same situation?_ Leonardo asked himself. He didn't dare answer - he knew that if Splinter were there the situation never would have happened. Somehow he would have taken Mike's hell away and left him his same old loveable self.

_Hurry home,_ Master, Leo thought, trying to project the message outwards to their father on the other side of the globe. _Mikey needs you._

"Damn!" Don said.

"What?"

"I screwed up." He tapped the capped end of the pen on the TV Guide and sneered.

Leo laughed inwardly at the irony of it; he had just been envying Don's confidence and now that confidence was being dashed. "I guess even perfect people need pencils with erasers," Leo said before he could stop himself.

Don scratched the back of his head. "_Perfect_, eh? Right... ok, whatever."

"Live with it, Donny," Raph added, flipping a page in his knife catalog. "We oughta' frame that there puzzle."

"Haw-haw..."

Leo stood and looked down at his brothers. It was nice to hear them joking, but it seemed empty without Mike in there swapping insults, too. "Does anybody want anything from the kitchen?" he asked, hoping that maybe a task would help him get the situation out of his mind.

"A Coke," Don said, scribbling out his mistake. "Thanks."

"Popcorn - the buttery stuff. I hate that plain crap," Raphael said.

Leo shook his head, wondering just what Raph _didn't_ hate. He headed into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Mike was sitting at the kitchen table, a piece of paper unfolded before him.

Michaelangelo looked up at his brother with unemotional eyes. Leo snapped to attention, unaware that he had been staring, and walked to the cupboard, pulling out a bag of popcorn and throwing it into the microwave and punching in three-and-a-half minutes. As the microwave started to hum, Leo walked to the table and sat down across from Mike.

"So... what'cha readin'? he asked.

Mike curled his fist up on the table top. "_Hottoite-kure-yo_!" he said through his teeth. "Just mind your own fucking business..."

Leonardo stood and stared down at his brother, losing patience with him at long last. "_Damare-yo_!" he said, resting his fingertips on the paper. "And stop ignoring me! Can't you tell that me and the guys are worried about you?"

Mike slapped Leo's hand away and crumpled the paper, throwing it across the kitchen as he stood and bounded over to the sink. He turned his back to Leo and leaned over the counter, his hands on the back of his head.

"Can't you just leave me alone?" he demanded.

Leo walked up behind Mike and put his hand on his shoulder, damning himself for losing control of the situation. "I'm sorry, Mikey," he said softly. "But you've been so distant. We tried leaving you alone, but it just made it worse."

Michaelangelo shook off his brother's touch and moved a few steps away, still bending over the counter. Leo folded his arms and leaned back against the sink, gazing downwards and listening to the popcorn as it cooked. The microwave beeped and the last few straggling kernels popped before the kitchen fell into a nearly insuperable silence.

"You can't just shut us out like this," Leonardo said, looking over into Mike's face.

"I can do whatever I damn well please," Mike uttered under his breath. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone."

"Dammit, Mike," he raised his voice as he spun his brother around to face him. "You have to talk to us some time, you can't just keep whatever this is to yourself. For God's sake, that's what we're here for!"

"I don't need you!" Mike yelled, pulling away.

Leonardo lowered his arms and stepped back. Mike's eyes were cold, uninhabited... they held no trace of the person that had once lived behind them.

"Mike, I... I'm..." Leonardo linked his fingers and held them in front of his face, wondering over the next words he would say. He had none. Instead he reached out his hands, wanting to hold on to Mike - not wanting that piece of him to slip away. His fingertips brushed against Michaelangelo's arms...

Mike balled up his fist and hit Leonardo in the jaw. Leo stepped back, rubbing his chin and gritting his teeth. Before he could say a word Mike had spun around to the counter and twisted back, a large kitchen knife in his grip. He waved it in front of Leo's face and began to shake.

"Just leave me alone!" he cried out. He was holding the handle of the knife so tightly that his skin was pulled taught across his knuckles.

Leo moved back another step and held up his hands, trying to calm Mike with the action. "Take it easy..." he whispered, looking at the metal blade that moved back and forth before him.

"I will** not** take it easy!" Tears started to well up in his eyes and the knife lowered slightly. "I **can't**! Don't you understand that?"

"Maybe we could understand it if you would just talk to us about it..." Leo was having a hard time remaining calm but managed to put on his blankest face. "...just talk about it." he held out his hand and took a step forward.

"Hey, where the hell is the popcorn?" Raphael walked into the kitchen at full-steam, followed half a step behind by Donatello. They both stopped suddenly when they saw the stand-off.

"Mikey?" Don said, his shoulders drooping.

Raphael glanced over towards Leonardo, who was looking back at him with an expression that communicated danger. "What's going on in here?" Raphael asked. "Mikey, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying... to be alone..." he forced out.

Donatello slid out of Mike's sight and behind his back. He looked at Leonardo and Raphael - they each gave him a silent signal that they were ready when he was. Don nodded and moved in slowly, putting each foot down deliberately so as not to make a noise. Raphael scooted forward suddenly and Mike shifted the knife in his direction - that was the signal that Donatello had been waiting for. He turtle readied for attack - an attack on his own brother. He could scarcely believe that it had come down to this point. He paused, wondering if there could be a better way - his one mistake.

Mike spun around, his hand wielding the knife with a greater resolve than before. "Go away!" he screamed.

Don jumped back but not soon enough to avoid the blade. It contacted with the skin on his arm, slicing into it. Raphael grabbed Mike by the hand, twisting his arm behind his shell - he let out a yell of pain and surprise. Raphael pushed down on his brother's elbow, forcing loose Mike's grip on the knife and then hooked his foot around the other turtle's legs, pushing forward and slamming onto his plastron. Mike kicked and yelled out, trying to struggle against Raphael's full weight.

"Hold still, Mikey!" Raphael said. "You're going to hurt yourself!"

Leonardo sprinted to Don, who was looking down at the fight and wholly unconcerned with his own injury. Blood ran from the laceration and dripped onto the concrete floor.

"You okay?" Leo asked, taking a closer look at Donatello's arm. "I don't think you'll need stitches, but we should get this cleaned up and wrapped."

Don swallowed and nodded. He was still looking at Mike and Raphael on the floor - at least the struggle had ended. Michaelangelo was crying, concentrating on each breath and rubbing his face across the rough concrete surface. He mumbled something and closed his eyes.

Raph lightened his weight from Mikey but kept a hand firmly on his wrist. "You gonna' go ballistic if I let you up?" he asked.

"I just... I just want to go to bed," came the labored reply.

Leo nodded his approval and Raphael pulled himself up off of Mikey, offering him a hand. Mike looked at the offer and accepted it - a surprise to them all. He rubbed his arm where it had been twisted and looked back at Leo then shifted his gaze to Don's bleeding arm and closed his eyes, turning away. He stood quietly, swaying gently back and forth in the center of the kitchen and letting the tears roll freely down his cheeks. Raph put a hand on Mike's shoulder.

"C'mon, kid," Raph said kindly. "Let's get you to bed."

Mikey rubbed his eyes and nodded, taking a few shaky steps out of the kitchen. Raphael ventured a look back and mouthed the words "he'll be okay" as they walked around the corner and out of sight.

Leo shook his head and looked into Don's eyes. Mike had been difficult to live with since the incident but never before had he pulled a knife on a brother - even Raphael in his angriest moments had never done that. Leo stumbled to the sink and wet a clean kitchen rag, bringing it back to Don and pressing it to his injured arm.

"What happened in here?" Donatello asked, wincing.

Leo threw his hands into the air and let them flop back down to his sides. "I haven't got a clue."

"Something must have set him off, he wouldn't have just flipped out over nothing."

"Lately..?" Leo said. "Yes, he would."

"What exactly was he doing when you came in?"

Leo thought back and looked at the crumpled paper on the floor - he reached down and picked it up. "Reading this. Or looking at it - something like that."

Don took the paper and unfolded it, looking past the crinkles at the words that were written in fancy cursive. "It's just that letter from Oyuki." He put the letter down on the table, staring at it and trying to unlock its mystery.

"I don't get it," Leo said. "I just... I don't get it."

"Was there anything else?"

Leo shrugged. "He bitched at me."

"And..?"

"And..." Leo leaned forward on the backrest of a chair and hung his head. "I told him to shut up."

Don looked off to the side. "If there wasn't something major wrong with him in the first place that wouldn't have pushed him past the edge," he said, trying to absolve Leo of some of the guilt he was feeling. "C'mon..." he started walking out the door.

"Where are we going?" Leo asked, following him.

"To get my arm patched up... and then to finish something that I should have finished a long time ago."

* * *


	13. 13

* * *

"Hey, Raph... c'mon."

Raphael opened his eyes and looked towards the door where Leonardo stood. "What's up?"

"Donny's got something he wants to show us."

He glanced over at Mikey, who was sleeping quietly on the floor, he hadn't wanted to get into his bed for some reason. Raph had found his own place on the messy floor and leaned against the wall, waiting for his brother to fall asleep. Mike had tossed and turned for over an hour before he finally dropped off, then he mumbled in the midst of his dream, talking to Oyuki and his brothers in his reverie. Raph hadn't understood much of what he had said, just the names.

Raph stood and stretched, walking towards the door. He and Leo took a look in on Mike before shutting him in; they didn't want him to hear what was going to be said, whatever that would be. So far Don had kept quiet about the details of his most recent search, but they both knew that if he had not told either one of them individually it must have been major news. Leo and Raph walked without a word into Don's room and sat down on his bed, folding their hands across their laps and waiting for him to speak to them words that they most likely did not want to hear. He was at his computer, leaning forward and concentrating with a look that neither one of the others could decide was one of fear or confusion or both. He turned around slowly, scratching his arm just above the bandage that Leo had provided after Michaelangelo's attack.

"I didn't want to do it, guys... I guess that's why it took me so long to get it done."

"What?" Leo asked.

"I finished the search - with a few more keywords and an... unfortunate bit of inspiration," Don said. "Remember the day Mikey had that spell? Remember? While we were watching the news."

"Mm-hmm," Raph hummed the affirmative.

"Do either of you remember what was on the TV when it happened?"

"Uhm... actually, no," Leo confessed.

"I wasn't paying much attention," Raphael added.

Don shook his head. "Neither was I. The point is, I looked back over the reports that aired that day and I found this..." He spun and hit a key on his computer keyboard. The screen shook and the smiling face of a blond teen appeared. "Now do you remember?"

Leonardo nodded. "Yeah... now I do."

"Didn't the news say that this kid was hit by a car or something like that?" Raph asked.

Donatello leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "No, you only heard part of it. They thought that he had been hit by a car, at first, anyway. What they found... oh, hell." He spun back towards his computer and began paraphrasing what was there. "This is a police report. The** official** police report about the death of this kid, Thomas Gregory. He was fourteen."

Raphael hugged his arms around his own body, not liking the way this story had begun.

"He was found in the middle of the street," Don continued. "With his neck broken."

"Shit..." Leo mumbled.

"Like I said, at first the police thought it was a hit and run, but then they changed their story. But listen; a knife was found nearby with a single set of human fingerprints that did not match the victim, there was an open manhole cover a few yards from the kid... But here's the clincher: _blood found a few meters from the knife was found to have not belonged to the victim and subsequent analysis has shown that it does not have a human source. The closest approximation at time of report is that the blood was of bird or reptile origin, further analysis pending_."

Leo pressed his hand to his mouth. "Christ..."

"Are you trying to say that this kid stabbed Mikey? That Mikey broke his neck? No fucking way, you know he couldn't do something like that..." Raph said angrily.

"Evidence, guys... that's what it's come down to," Don said. "We have the evidence right here. The times match up, reptilian blood, a manhole..."

"But no needle," Leonardo said, lowering his hand. "You said Mikey was stabbed with a needle."

Donatello nodded. "I know. There are other things that don't add up, like the fingerprints on the knife."

"Did they find out who the fingerprints belonged to?" Leonardo asked.

"No matches."

"So, the guy who owned the knife could be the same one who stabbed Mikey..."Raph said. "Maybe he didn't kill the kid."

Don sighed, he hadn't wanted to do this. He opened a new file and young Thomas' autopsy photos flashed into view. Leonardo jumped back, looking at the familiar handprints that the bruises revealed: two large thumb marks at the front, braced over the trachea; four longer fingers wrapped around the back of his neck. Fingers much too wide to belong to a human.

Leo hung his head. "Jesus... we... we didn't even know."

"He never told us," Raph said, resting a hand on Leo's shoulder.

Donatello stood and joined the others at the bed. "It's partly my fault, guys," he said. "I kept putting off the search. I think that... maybe I didn't want to know."

"I don't think any of us really wanted to," Leo told him.

"But now that we do," Raph said, folding and unfolding his hands, "what do we do about it?"

* * *


	14. 14

* * *

When Michaelangelo awoke he saw nothing but the darkness, heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the rhythmic thump of his heart. His eyes tried to focus through the shadows, to see something - anything. He sank himself into the night and held his breath, curling into a ball and pressing his face to the cold concrete floor beneath him. He tried not to scream.

They were haunting him - his actions, his reactions. They began to echo against the thinning walls of his mind; cursing at him, damning his name. Mike uncurled himself and crawled blindly to the middle of the room, standing and waving his hand around in the air. He found the string that led to the single-bulb light fixture in his room and pulled down hard, turning on the light and breaking the cord at the same time. He blinked hard in the new illumination and threw the string to the floor. He stared at it and then looked to his own hands; they were beginning to shake. He tried to stop them, rubbing his palms together as he paced around his cluttered room, caring nothing for the things he stepped upon.

Those things -- his once-prized possessions -- they didn't mean anything to him anymore. They felt like relics to Michaelangelo, just memories that he had seen fade and learned to ignore. He dragged his feet across a notebook, the words _Mikey's stuff - keep out!_ rubbed into the cover by an eraser. He glared at it, wondering what he had once written inside. He couldn't remember...

He sank to the floor and picked up the book, running his fingers across the white letters, then opened it and tried to read. But his hands were shaking so bad that he could not focus on the words, so he put the book down on the floor and leaned over it. He flipped through the pages, glancing at the scribbled drawings and half-completed limericks. They didn't mean anything to him now, he couldn't even remember when he had written them - or even if they were by his own hand. He turned to the last page and stopped, looking at hasty words written there in purple crayon. This he remembered... he wished he could forget that night…

-

_He smiled in his sleep, feeling so secure and warm. His fading, beautiful dream was drifting back and forth, whispering for him to wake up and see what had caused such images. He woke but left his eyes shut, not wanting yet to release the mystery. He felt her wrapped in his arms, her soft breath warming his skin. The smell of leather and old cigarettes drifted from somewhere nearby and he shifted his face, feeling the jacket beneath it. It was hers, the one she always wore; it was lying on the arm of the couch where she had put it hours ago - it had become their pillow. They had fallen asleep on the couch and somehow they had become locked within one another's embrace, safely entwined so neither one of them would fall._

_He held her closer and his cheek brushed against her hair. Soft hair, jet black and short, but long enough to hide those beautiful eyes. Sometimes he wished she wouldn't try so hard to hide them, sometimes it seemed as if she were trying to hide something within them - some secret. He sought them out every chance he could; whenever the wind blew just a bit too hard and moved the black strands away from her skin he could see them, but then she would turn away. Always hiding..._

_He opened his own eyes and looked at her sleeping face. She was so young, but life had been so hard. She never told him everything. Sometimes she would mention what it had been like living on the streets, how she had to steal to survive - but then the telling would end suddenly, as if she had dredged up some memory that she did not want him to know about. He respected that. He knew that he could never truly understand all that she had gone through as a child. His own life had been none too wonderful, but at least he had a family and there had always someone there to lean on if he could not stand on his own. She had always been resigned to being her own crutch, her own guardian. That had given her tender heart an armor that she would not let anyone penetrate._

_He had come near to breaking through a few times, to getting past the steel gates that life had built. But when he did, she backed away. She wanted to be his friend... someone to stay up late and watch b-movies with and who would gladly participate in any practical joke that he had planned against his brothers. That was who she let shine through._

_He kissed her brow gently, knowing that he would never be able to do so when she was awake. Maybe she would dream it, maybe she would wake up happy and not know why. She would be leaving soon, going on a trip to a place that she swore she would never return to. That place that had left her locked up so deeply within herself. She would be gone for a long time and had told him that she would miss hanging out with him and having fun. He'd smiled and cuffed her on the arm, putting on a false face that didn't tell her how his heart would hurt in her absence. He couldn't tell her all that she had become to him, not without losing her friendship._

_He drew in a deep breath and rolled her out of his arms as he kneeled down on the floor beside the couch. She stretched and opened her eyes partway before shutting them again and returning to her deep sleep. He brushed the hair away from her face, touching her cheek gently with his fingertips... her skin was so soft. He sighed as he turned towards the coffee table. There was a blue pad of paper there, open to a page with little stick-figures drawn where they had been playing hangman earlier that night._

_He picked up the pad and the purple crayon that they had been using and sat on the concrete floor, leaning back against the table. He looked at her again and thought back to another evening they had fallen asleep together. He smiled softly and pressed the crayon to the paper, beginning to write..._

_"I could hear you softly breathing  
I watched your chest rise and fall  
Forgive me  
For staying there all through the night  
And gazing at you  
Lost in your face  
While you are lost in your dreams  
By dawn I fell into my own  
I remember  
For just a moment in the morning light  
I opened my eyes  
And I saw you sitting there  
You were hugging your knees  
And looking at me  
Do you do the same?  
Do you stare at me  
And wonder?  
Do you watch me at night  
The same way I sometimes watch you  
When you sleep?"_

-

Michaelangelo threw the pad of paper across the room and punched the concrete wall. He looked at his shaking fist and the blood that was flowing to the surface of the broken skin then folded himself over and laid his face on the floor.

"Why..?" he whispered, rubbing the blood onto his leg. Why had he let himself read that notebook, why he had let himself pull up that memory? She didn't need him, he'd just been lying to himself. What the hell could she see in him..? She had someone else... she had a human to love, she didn't need a freak...

He was hurting again. Michaelangelo rubbed the tender spot at the crook of his elbow and got to his knees, crawling to his unmade bed. He reached under the mattress and felt around, pulling out his things. The needle was getting dull, he stared at it for a few seconds and told himself that it would be okay to use again, just one more time... or two... He looked in his other hand at the zip-locked bag and his eyes grew wide. It was empty. He'd thought he had more, when had he used the last of it? He pushed his mattress off the box spring and looked around. There was none, it was gone. He tore the bag open and threw it away from him, stabbing the needle into the mattress.

"Shit!" he yelled, pulling the needle out and throwing it towards his bedroom door.

It bounced off and rolled to a rest a few feet away and Mike slammed his fists into the floor. His whole body was beginning to shake now, he had to do something. He thought about his brothers - he wanted to call to them for help, but he couldn't. How could he face them? What would he say to them? If they knew... He stood and walked to the mirror on the wall - it was already cracked and reflected him in seven angles. He looked at each one, seeing a different him each time. The last one looked at him with evil eyes - it stared him down, admonishing in whispered words.

_You murderer..._

"No... no, I'm not..." he sobbed.

_You think they don't know? They know. You know. You killed them._

Mike gritted his teeth. "I... didn't..."

_Don't you remember how it felt to push him off the roof? Don't you remember hearing his body when it hit the ground..?_

"I didn't push him... I tried... to save him..."

_And the kid... you just wrapped your hands around his neck and snapped it..._

"Stop it... I didn't..."

_...like a twig. You can still hear that, eh? Can you remember that? **Snap**! I wonder what his family thinks of you..._

Mike smashed the mirror with his fist, sending the frame crashing to the floor. He collapsed after it, his cheek landing on the shards. They dug into his skin - but he didn't care. He couldn't care, not any more.

_You tried to kill Leo,_ the voice still whispered from the tiny glass fragments around him. _You cut Don... your own brother... you tried to kill them both. You'd have tried to kill Raphael, too.. if you had gotten the chance._

Mike pressed his face onto the shards, forcing them into his skin. "I did..." he said softly as tears mixed with blood on the shattered mirror. "I could've killed them... oh, Jesus... I could've killed them..."

Michaelangelo began to remember again the look on Leonardo's face when he'd pulled the knife on him... the pain in Donatello's eyes when the blade slashed through his skin. He had done those things... he remembered those things... he hated himself for it. He had never hated anybody so much as himself at that moment.

If anybody else had done that - had threatened his family... he'd have killed them.

Michaelangelo's shoulder started to ache again and his chest began to sting, just like it had done before. But he had been able to stop it before, he'd had the stuff there to make it go away... he gasped, it felt as if someone had taken a knife and driven it through his plastron, into his heart. He looked out across the shards of mirror that lay on the floor, one sat propped up against the wall... it was larger than the rest, large enough to reflect the image of his eye back at him. He reached out and grabbed the glass, not wanting to see himself. He squeezed it tightly and felt the skin on his palm pop against the edge. He opened his hand and watched the flow as it traced the lines of his hand. It hurt.

Mike stared at the blood-smeared glass. He didn't want to hurt anymore. Maybe he could make it stop hurting... there could still be a way. Maybe he could make it so he would never hurt again. He never wanted to hurt again...

He closed his eyes as he pressed the fragment to the green skin on his wrist. He held it still, flexing his hand; feeling the sharpness press against his skin and tendon each time he closed his fingers. He made a fist and pushed the glass down, pulling it across his wrist - slashing through the skin, through the muscle... through the vein…

* * *


	15. 15

_**

* * *

**_

_**Japan**_

Oyuki buried her face in her hands and tried to explain it to herself. _It's just the stress of the trip,_ she thought. _That's all. No problem, I'll..._

She heard April and Splinter walk into the hotel room and straightened up. "Hi, guys," she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "How's it going?"

April smiled and tossed her purse onto one of the twin beds of the Western-style hotel room. "Great! You should've come with us, you would've had fun."

Oyuki waved her hand at April and turned her head. "I don't like pachinko."

"Well... you still should've come. You haven't been out of the hotel for two days."

"I've just been a little down in the dumps," she said. "I'll be ready for filming first thing tomorrow."

Splinter lowered his hood and stepped up to Oyuki, putting his hand on hers. "Are you feeling well, child?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Maybe a little queasy." _No, no! Dammit! Why did I tell him that?_ She tried to fake a smile. "I'll be fine in the morning."

"You need some Pepto?" April asked, sitting down on the bed beside Oyuki.

"Nah, I'm good."

April shrugged. "Okay. If you change your mind, just ask."

"Thanks."

They all went quiet and Oyuki could tell that Splinter, at least, was suspecting that something was truly bothering her. He was older, after all... he'd seen so much more in his life. She lowered her head and he put his furry fingers on her chin, gently lifting her face up so he could look in her eyes. She tried to look away, but there was something ancient and paternal in his gaze that Oyuki could not bring herself to turn from. He was so much like a father to her, she had never had that kind of relationship before. He smiled an understanding smile and put his hand on the back of her head, drawing her into a hug.

"Am I missing something here?" April asked, raising an eyebrow.

Oyuki looked up and held out her arm. "C'mon over, this one's for all of us," she said.

April smiled and joined in the hug. "I swear, I don't know what's going on half the time." They broke the hug and April saw a tear in the corner of Oyuki's eye. "What's wrong, hon?"

The teen wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Nothin'. I'm just... I have to go to the store."

"For what?"

Oyuki and Splinter looked at one another. Splinter knew... even if April didn't suspect.

"I'm out of cigarettes," Oyuki lied.

April wiped the moisture from the girl's cheek. "That must be one hell of a nic-fit."

Oyuki nodded. "You ain't kiddin'." She stood and walked for the door, grabbing her jacket. "I'll be right back."

"Be careful," April advised.

Oyuki and Splinter looked at one another again. A silent word went out, telling the rat what she was really going out after. She needn't have sent out the message, he already knew. He promised her silently that he would not mention it to April - he would leave that to Oyuki, herself; if it came out positive...

-

**_New York_**

Raphael paced outside Mike's door, wishing that reality would leave for a few minutes and give him the courage to walk inside and talk to his brother. Raphael wasn't afraid of much, but this terrified him. He and Mike had always been so close, sharing everything... almost everything; there used to be no secrets between them, now it seemed as if Michaelangelo's life had become an entire secret unto itself. He'd never told Raph about the cop, he'd never told him about the kid... that other thing that Raphael feared Mike had not told him struck much deeper... echoing memories of Raph's own past. The reason why... the truth behind all the anger.

Raphael feared what he knew. He just didn't want to believe it. Now he was on the verge of going inside and confronting his brother with the truth...

_Jesus, Mike,_ he thought, resting his hand on the doorknob. _Prove me wrong, kid..._

He knocked on the door softly before pushing it open and looking inside. The light was on, so he knew that Mike must have woken up at some point. Raphael looked around the room, searching for where his brother had hidden himself. His eyes fell upon something strange on the wall: a blood-smeared handprint. Raph felt his heart jump up into his throat and stepped forward cautiously.

"Mike..?" he said, praying to hear his brother reply. "Mikey... where are you?"

"...Raph..?"

Raphael's eyes shot up and he looked towards the source of Mike's voice. He was beside his bookshelf, half-hidden in the shadows, the most visible part of him a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his wrist. Raphael swallowed hard and ran to him, tripping over some books and falling to his knees. He crawled the rest of the way to Mike's side and pulled him close.

"Jesus Christ, Mikey... what the hell did you do to yourself..?

Mike held up the syringe. "...I'm sorry..." he whispered. "...I didn't want to..." tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his lacerated cheeks. "...Please don't be mad at me, Raph..."

"I'm not mad, kid... you know I'm not," he said, letting himself cry. "Just hang on, we'll get you taken care of..."

"...Raph...?"

"Yeah..?"

"...I don't wanna' die..."

Raphael hugged him tighter. "You aren't going to die, Mikey... I'm not gonna' let you."

"...Please... don't lemme..." his words were starting to slur and he took in a deep breath, throwing the needle to the floor. He pressed his hand to his left shoulder and winced. "...it hurts..."

"I know," Raph said, helping his brother to stand. "We'll get your wrist patched up, don't worry..."

Mike shook his head and leaned on his brother. "...No, not..." he squeezed his eyes shut and lurched forward, grabbing for his chest. "...Jesus, Raph... it hurts..."

Raphael grabbed Mike, stopping his forward momentum but not ending the fall. Mike's knees buckled and he collapsed into the other turtle's arms, gasping for breath. Raph felt panic welling up within him. "What is it..? What hurts..?"

Michaelangelo gritted his teeth and pointed at his chest. "...Here..."

Raphael picked up his brother and carried him out of the room. "Just hang on kid..." he breathed. " Mike's head flopped back and he became a dead weight in the ninja's arms. "Jesus, Mikey... just hold on...

Raphael burst through the door to Donatello's room and put his brother down on the bed.

"Christ!" Don yelled, standing up from his desk. He ran to Mike and put a finger on his neck; there was a heartbeat but it was slow and unsteady. "What the hell happened!?" he demanded, pushing Raphael away so he could examine Mike's wrist.

Raphael lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged, holding onto his head. "Shit! I was wrong! I was fucking wrong!" he yelled at himself.

Donatello grabbed hold of Raph's elbow and hauled him to his feet. "Wrong about what?"

"He..." Raph's voice caught in his throat.

Donatello let go of his elbow and shoved him away. "Go get Leonardo!"

Raphael began to back slowly out of the room then turned and ran. Don could hear him screaming for their brother and a few seconds later they both ran inside.

"_Kuso_!" Leo yelled, wrapping his hand around Mike's wrist. "What happened?"

"I found him... in his room..." Raph said haltingly. "He had the fucking needle..."

Donatello spun around and looked his brother in the eye, anger visibly burning. "You said you looked!" he yelled. "You said his room was clean!"

"It was! I didn't find anything there!"

"Then where the fuck did the needle come from?"

Raph's regret was beginning to become overshadowed by his anger once again. "I don't know! He must have had it somewhere else! Why didn't you find those damn holes in his arms? They couldn't have been so hard to see during your examination!"

"I couldn't even get him to let me take his pulse, do you really think he'd willingly let me see that?"

"You didn't even try!"

Don pushed Raph away and turned his back. "Maybe you should get out of here..."

Raphael brought up his fist but a strong grip on his wrist stopped him from throwing it. He looked at the hand that held him back and then into the resolute face of Leonardo.

"_Yamero-yo_!" the ninja ordered. "Both of you! We'll worry about who is to blame later, right now we have to take care of Mikey!"

Raph lowered his hand and looked at the blood that Leonardo's grip had left there. Mikey's blood, from a self-inflicted wound. Raph stared at Mike's wrist and bit down. _You were supposed to be better than this._

* * *


	16. 16

_**June 20**_

Leo watched as Donatello and Raphael stared at one another across the kitchen table. The two had barely spoken since what had happened - each one harboring an animosity towards the other. Don thought that Raph hadn't searched hard enough for the drugs in Mike's room; Raph thought Don hadn't searched hard enough for signs of them in Mike's body. They were both wrong, but in an odd way they were both right - and it had taken them two weeks to admit it out loud. Neither one of them had wanted to think Mike capable of doing drugs, so, somewhat subconsciously, neither one of them had tried hard enough to prove that he was. Leo knew that he was guilty of that, as well - though for some reason his brothers had chosen to direct their anger away from him and towards one another. It had been Leo alone that had held them together as a family in the midst of the anger and guilt.

Michaelangelo still wasn't doing well. He hadn't been using for long, but they had taken a strong hold on him. His detoxification had been painful for him and difficult for his brothers to watch - but they did watch. They watched his convulsions and held down his hands when he tried to hurt himself; they watched his tears and dried them as best they could with loving words of support; they watched as he stared at the stitches on his wrist and regretted that they could do nothing to take away his pain. The one thing none of them ever did was to mention the word suicide. In Mike's presence or just among themselves, the word seemed too strong, the implication too unbelievable.

Donatello had discovered that Mike's heart had been damaged by the abuse and that he had experienced what was basically a heart attack. Minor, but another one would have killed him. His heart was still weak and it would be for a long time. His wrist, too, was unlikely to heal well. He had slashed through part of the tendon and without better medical equipment they were unable to stitch it up perfectly - and his performance with that hand may now forever be diminished.

Lately Michaelangelo just sat and stared at nothing, neither eating nor talking - barely even blinking. His muscles had weakened over the course of the abuse and now, with his refusal to eat, they grew weaker still. Don forced Mike to take an I.V., but it was not a substitute for real food and he had lost several pounds in a week's time. The shadiest spot that Leonardo could see was that Mike had stopped asking for the pain to go away - that could have meant that it had left him or that he had learned to live with it - or that he had learned to hide it.

Leo stood and walked away from the table, towards Mike's room. Michaelangelo had gotten just well enough to sleep in there by himself the night before and was still inside this late into the evening. The guys had taken looks in on him, checking just to be sure that he wasn't reverting back to the behavior of the prior month. So far he had been behaving the same as they had come to expect while he was confined to the lab - silent and unmoving. Raphael had taken it upon himself to clean Mike's room before they had allowed him back there - partly it had been to ease Mike's psyche by not having him return to a destroyed room - the other reason Raph had volunteered was so that he could check one final time for any drugs he might have missed. There were none, but Raphael hadn't been able to satisfy himself with that and searched every square inch of the rest of the lair.

Leonardo knocked on Michaelangelo's door and pushed it open. The turtle was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He surprised his brother by looking over at him as he entered.

"How you feeling?" Leo asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Mike didn't answer as he returned his gaze to the ceiling. Leo hadn't really expected a reply, but asked the question in the hopes that some acknowledgement would be made. Mike sighed - that was the sign that was prayed for. A small sign, but still a sign. Leonardo looked over at a pad of paper that lay on Mike's bed stand. There was a pen resting atop it - Mike had been writing. Leo wanted to ask him what he had written, but he knew that it was truly Mike's privacy that was hidden within the covers of the college-ruled notepad.

"We got another letter from Splinter. You wanna' come out and join us?" Leo asked hopefully. As expected, there was no answer. "Well, c'mon out if you get lonely," Leonardo said, standing and putting his hand on Mike's shoulder.

Michaelangelo looked up again. His eyes were growing more recognizable with each passing day, but they still held something deep and painful. Something that whispered words that Leo wished he could understand.

-

Don rubbed his hands together as he looked at Raph. They had said their apologies days before, but that had done nothing to release the hard feelings between them. The only person that nobody had blamed at one point or another was Mike. They pointed no fingers in his direction - not merely out of fear of how such words would affect him, but by the simple knowledge that even though Mike had dug his own pit, it was they that had given him the shovel. They hadn't noticed the indications - or more likely they hadn't wanted to notice them.

That had struck Raphael the hardest for some reason, almost to the point where he was willing to offer up his own soul for the sake of Mike's. He'd told Leo and Don in a fit of anger that only **he** could understand the hell that their little brother had descended into. When they asked him what he meant he stormed off and started cleaning Mike's room, ignoring them entirely until he had finished. And his behavior had become odd - Don recalled stepping into the lab one evening when Raph was on watch with Mike - Raphael had a book in his hands and was reading. Donatello found the book later and discovered it was a compilation of poetry - one of the books that Mike had gotten for Christmas a few years back. Don hadn't been able to figure out what had drawn a non-reader such as Raphael to read it. In the end Donatello shrugged off the event, telling himself that it was just another symptom of the change that had burned through their home in the past month.

-

Raph hung his head.

_I may be silent, but  
I'm thinking  
I May not talk, but  
Do not mistake me for a wall._

He had misunderstood... he had taken Mike's behavior and told himself that his brother had been silent for all that time. But it wasn't silence. Raphael now realized that Mike **had** been speaking, they just hadn't been listening. **He** hadn't listened. He should have known it, he should have recognized the signs.

_I did see them,_ he thought. _I just didn't want it to be true._

Raphael also knew that he had hurt Don with the accusations, as Don had done to him in turn. They were on opposite ends of the blade, each trying to pull the other across the edge and each managing to cut himself in the process. The more Raph pulled the more he knew he was wrong - and the less he could say in response. He'd even begun to read more, mostly Mikey's books. He felt almost as if he were trying to get into his mind and figure out what was hiding there. Who was his brother now? Where had the fun-loving kid gone.?

He rubbed his eyes and wondered if Mikey's hell looked the same as his own.

Leonardo walked into the kitchen, holding the latest letter from their sensei. They had gotten three so far, but the last one went unread for a week and then they had each read it privately to himself. Leo couldn't even remember what Splinter had said in that one, besides mentioning a naval base of some type. This new letter was to be read aloud, so all could hear. _Almost_ all...

"Mikey's staying in his room?" Don asked, though he knew he hadn't needed to.

Leonardo nodded. "Yeah." He opened the letter and stared at it for a few seconds before beginning to read:

_"My sons,_

_We have most recently traveled to Shimoda to take part in the Black Ship Festival. The city is small, but during the festival is quite busy. There are many ships from several different countries, including the United States. I feel we may be returning sooner than expected, as we have gathered much footage and are running low on funds. I expect we may get another three weeks filming before we return. In that instance, this will be the last letter you receive before our return. We will contact you immediately upon our landing._

_Until then,  
Splinter"_

Leonardo put down the paper and looked from the face of Don to that of Raphael.

"This letter took two weeks, too, right?" Raph asked.

Leonardo looked at the postmark. "Yeah."

"I hope that means they'll be back by next week," Don said.

Leo hoped so, too - but he didn't know how he was going to explain what had happened to Mikey.

-

Michaelangelo stood silently outside the kitchen door and looked at his brothers. They hadn't noticed him, so he slipped back to his room and sat down on his bed, staring at the healing scar on his wrist. He wouldn't be able to face Splinter now, not after what he had done. What would the sensei think of him? He'd think that he was weak - that he had been a coward to try and take the easy path away from pain.

_He'd be right,_ Mike thought.

He reached over to his nightstand and picked up his notebook, flipping it to the last page and looking at the purple letters again. He feared facing Oyuki even more than he did Splinter. She'd probably hate him when she found out what he had done. Mike closed the cover and laid back upon his carapace, closing his eyes and wondering where he should go from here. His path had been burned at his feet and he now knew he would have to find a new one. And before he could do that he would first need to sweep up the ashes.


	17. 17

**_Japan_**

**_June 22_**

****

"God, I'm gonna' miss it here," April said, looking out of her hotel room window. "I love this country."

Oyuki was sitting on the bed, sneering and holding onto her stomach. "Yeah... okay. You got any more Pepto?"

April turned around and looked at her, half grinning. "Nope - you used the last of it this morning." She sat down on the bed. "You still have that stomach bug, huh?"

"Uh-huh..."

"I'm surprised me and Splinter haven't caught it, too. Or at least me... I'm not sure if Splinter **could **catch it."

"Don't worry," Oyuki moaned, lying back. "I don't think you're gonna get it, either."

Splinter wandered in from the bathroom wearing a robe, his fur still soaking wet from his bath. He looked at the women and bowed gently. "I apologize for taking so long," he said.

April smiled. "Don't worry, Sensei... I guess it takes a while for you to shampoo."

Oyuki looked at him and he looked back, passing a silent message between them. They did that a lot lately. So far Splinter had kept the secret, though Oyuki had never actually come out and told him directly. He knew. He just knew. He was on his honor not to mention it to April, and his honor was strong.

"You two excited about going back to the States?" April asked.

"Yeah, it'll be nice..." _...to see Mikey._ Oyuki only said the first part out loud.

Splinter sighed. "I will be happy to see my sons again," he said. "I have been feeling uneasy for a while now..." he stopped himself.

"About what? April pressed.

"I'm not certain."

April nodded. "Well, we have a few days left. Is there anything you two want to do before we leave?"

Oyuki was sitting up, putting a cigarette between her lips. "No... not really."

"Can you please not smoke in here?" April asked politely.

Oyuki opened her mouth to protest, but Splinter's voice cut her off.

"It is unwise to smoke at this time, child..."

She looked at him and took the cigarette out of her mouth, tossing it, unlit, into the trashcan.

April raised an eyebrow. "_At **this** time_?"

Oyuki sighed. She couldn't keep it under wraps anymore. April was her best friend... her best human friend... and practically like a mother to her. Besides, she was bound to find out as soon as Oyuki had to abandon her tight blue jeans in favor of looser clothing. But she wouldn't tell her the whole story - she wouldn't tell anyone that... maybe. She could think of one person she would tell it to... but somehow she would have to work up the courage before revealing it to him. And the first step was to reveal the smallest truth to someone... anyone. She cleared her throat.

"I think Splinter's trying to say..." she said, chewing on her thumbnail. "That it'll be bad for the baby..."


	18. 18

"Mikey's gone."

Raphael sat up on the weight bench and glared at Donatello, who stood in the doorway to the practice room. "What do you mean he's _gone_?"

Don stepped forward, holding out a pair of envelopes. "I mean he isn't here. I went to his room looking for him and this was all that was there."

Leonardo had been spotting Raph and still stood behind the bench; he reached out and took the envelopes from his brother's hand.

"These names mean anything to you?" Don asked, knowing that the others would know just as well as he did.

"Gregory... Mowrey..." Leonardo looked up from reading the names. "Those are the people Mikey..." he stopped himself. "What is this all about?"

Raphael snatched the envelopes out of Leo's hand. "_The **Family** of Thomas Gregory_..." he said. "Same for the Mowrey's."

"You suppose he's confessing?" Leonardo suggested.

Don shrugged. "Maybe."

"Looking for forgiveness," Raph said under his breath. The other two looked at him curiously and he straightened up. "I think he couldn't take the strain of holding it all in. He's looking for their forgiveness."

Leonardo shook his head. "Or he just wants them to know what really happened."

"Do you think we should open them?" Don asked.

Raphael stood suddenly. "No. This is his property - his business."

"Remember what happened to him the last time we left him to _his business_?"

"We don't have the right to open these letters. He meant them for these people," Raph said, pointing at the names. "Not us." He started to walk towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Leo asked him.

"To see Mikey. I think I know where he went."

-

Michaelangelo stepped to the edge of the building and faced the sky, taking in a long, deep breath. He hadn't been outside in so long he had forgotten what the world above smelled like, sounded like... he listened to the distant blaring of car horns and the rumble of a passing train. It seemed so different up there now. The last time he had been on this roof it had altered his life - ended someone else's. He couldn't forgive himself, not for everything that had happened - he hoped that at least his brothers would forgive him. The families of his victims never would...

He looked down into the darkness below. He could just let go and fly... just take a step and fall. He'd tried it before - it wouldn't be so hard to do again. To just be dead on the outside the same as he felt within... that would make it all equal.

He stepped forward and felt his toes hanging in the air. So close. He sat down, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. Bitter lessons... he wouldn't take the cowards way out - attempt again the unforgivable sin. He didn't know he was crying until he felt the tear slip down his face. He wrapped his arms around himself, touching the old leather of the jacket he wore. It wasn't his... it was someone else's.

Then he felt something. An instinct. A presence behind him.

He knew who it was - the way he had known when that same person had followed him into the city that night. He moved silently, stepping forward on two-toed feet, believing that Mike couldn't hear him... couldn't sense him.

"Mikey?"

Michaelangelo stayed his place, staring out into the night. Raphael stepped up beside him and sat down, folding his legs and holding out two envelopes.

"You forgot to mail these."

Mike looked at the envelopes and turned his head. He hadn't forgotten, he'd hoped one of the others would have had the courage that he lacked. He had written the letters, begging for forgiveness that he knew he would never receive. That had taken all his strength - it was the mailing them that would hurt the worst - putting them in the big blue box, sending them beyond the point of no return.

Raph lowered the letters and bit his lip. "You haven't spoken in weeks. You planning on being dead for the rest of your life?"

Mikey looked over at him with eyes that lingered between hurt and anger.

"What? You think I'm cold for saying it like that?" Raphael asked.

Yes... he didn't say it out loud, he wasn't ready to speak yet... not about this.

"You aren't the only one that's ever hurt, Mikey. I just... I..." he looked deep into Michaelangelo's eyes. Listen to him, Raphael told himself. "You don't think I could understand what happened, do you?"

Mike looked away.

"It's like this, right," Raph started. "Everything hurts, but you still feel numb. It's like the world around you isn't really there anymore, it's just a faded photograph of something you used to know. And the more you look at that photo the more it hurts and the more numb you become. But it hurts so damn bad... it hurts and you can't become numb enough. Am I close, Mike? Am I hitting on it now?"

Mike's eyes widened and the tears flowed again. He didn't know how Raphael could know that... he'd never said a word about his bubble of hell. But there his brother sat, describing it as if from his own memory. He wanted to know how... he didn't ask out loud, but Raphael heard the question, anyway. Somehow he'd learned how to listen.

Raph took off his wristband and held his hand out to Mike, who stared down at it in disbelief. A long, thin scar marred the smooth green of the turtle's skin. Mike looked into his eyes. So many questions...

"I was thirteen," Raphael said, lowering his hand and staring at the scar. "It was the first time I killed anyone. Self-defense, if you can believe that. God... I hated myself. I didn't know I was using so much force on the guy... I thought that maybe humans were as tough as you and me and the others. I thought he'd be able to fight back, blow-for-blow. He didn't. I put my sai through his stomach and that was it. It was over." He stopped and took a breath. "Back then Splinter kept a lot of painkillers in the lab. A lot... I figured he wouldn't miss any. I used up all of it over the course of two weeks. I know it wasn't exactly the same as what you used, but... it worked. I don't know what happened, but somehow I found myself with a shuriken blade pressed to my wrist. Jesus... it hurt. I realized that if I did the other wrist and let it all go I wouldn't feel anything ever again - no love, no pain - nothing. I wasn't ready for that... I went to Splinter and he patched me up. I didn't even have a good excuse. But he wasn't mad at me, just hurt by me."

Mike wiped away a tear. "I... I didn't know," he said.

"Nobody did. Nobody but me and Splinter."

Michaelangelo squeezed his eyes shut. "Does it ever stop hurting?"

"...Eventually. But you can't let yourself forget it."

"What do you mean?"

Raphael put his hand on his brother's own. "I tried for so long to forget... to act like it didn't happen. I almost had it out of my mind... then this happened."

Mike looked at him. "You mean** me**."

"I didn't want to believe it. I hoped that you would be better than that."

"Well... I'm not."

Raph lowered his face. "Just don't let yourself forget what happened, Mike. Don't block it out of your mind... you may need the memory somewhere down the line. Like I did..."

"But it does get better?"

"Yeah - but it gets worse first. You know me, bro... one thing that's consistent in my life is getting knocked down. I figured out that sometimes it doesn't hurt so bad when you're on your back as it does when you try to get back up again."

"Sometimes I think you like to hurt... the way you go out so Kamikaze sometimes."

He half-smiled, "Pain proves you're alive."

That was it, then... for so many years Mike and the others had tried to rationalize Raph's self-destructive behavior. They'd figured it was just an attitude... just who he was. Never had they imagined that it was the product of such a deep pain. They never knew... and Mike could understand why. He'd been trying for the past couple weeks to hide his own pain, to shove it to the back reaches of his mind. He didn't want to feel it anymore... so he pretended it wasn't there. Now there was realization, a lesson in the form of his brother's wrist, scarred five years before.

But Mike still wasn't ready to let the hurt back into his life. He buried his face in his hands and started to cry. He felt Raphael's arms wrap around him and a tear fell onto his head. Raph was crying, too.


	19. 19

June 27

Leonardo hung up the phone and turned towards Raph and Don. "Their charter plane just landed," he said. "They're at Bradley."

"I thought they were supposed to be coming into LaGuardia," Raphael said. "Why the pit-stop?"

"Well, they kinda' had to slip off there on account of Master Splinter."

"Oh... yeah," Raph said.

Leonardo grabbed his trench coat and put it on, pulling a set of keys out of the pocket. "I'll take April's van," he said. "Either of you want to come along?"

Don put on his own coat. "Yeah, I'll go."

"I'll stay here with Mike," Raph offered.

Leo nodded. Mike was looking a little better, but that didn't mean much. At least he was speaking a few words to them now and was not so distant. He had even eaten dinner at the kitchen table with them the past evening, a step in the right direction, even if the food did make him sick. That had been expected after he had gone for so long without anything solid in his stomach.

Leo didn't know what Raph said to Mike the night that Donatello found the letters, but whatever it had been, it seemed to have helped. Still, Mike kept himself hidden away in his bedroom most of the time.

"Okay," Leo said. He put his fedora on and started walking towards the door with Donatello close behind. "We'll be back in a few hours."

Raphael nodded and his brothers walked out. _Shit,_ he thought. _Mikey's not ready yet._

He walked to Mike's room and knocked on the door. It was a few seconds before he heard Mike's low voice say, "Come in."

"Hey, kid," Raph said, opening the door and peering inside.

Mike looked up at him and shut the book he was reading. "Hey..."

"How you feeling?"

"Almost alive."

Raphael sat down next to his brother on the bed. "Don and Leo just left to pick up Splinter and the ladies."

"Already?" He stood and walked to his bookcase, leaning on it with his elbows and staring at the wall.

"Do you think you're ready?"

"No."

Raphael understood. "The guys agreed not to say anything to them yet. We'll handle it whatever way you want."

"I don't know what I want. I'm just not ready yet."

"You're not ready for what? To tell Master Splinter? You know he won't be mad…"

"That's not it," Michaelangelo turned around and looked the other in the face.

"Oh," Raph said, almost letting a smile slip out. "This is about Oyuki, isn't it?"

Mike let out a breath and rubbed his eyes. "Am I that obvious?"

"No. Well, yeah. But I like to think I know you pretty well, anyway."

"How much do you know about... I mean. You know how I feel about her, right?"

"All I know is what I see," Raph said after a beat. "It's kinda' cute, actually."

"I don't want to be_ cute_, I want to be serious," Mike said.

"Serious, eh? Mikey…" he paused, not wanting to dig out his own memories, but feeling the comparison important at that moment. "…Do you remember what I was like around Ninjara?"

"A slobbering mess of overflowing hormones..."

"The** other** way I acted..."

Mike crossed his arms. "Am I like that?"

Raphael joined his brother by the bookshelf. "She doesn't know about how you feel, does she?"

He shook his head. "I guess I'm not that obvious, after all."

"What is it you aren't ready for? To tell her what happened or to tell her how you feel?"

"Both."

"Then it's up to you. I suppose you can hold off on telling her how you feel, but you can't keep what happened here a secret. She's gonna' find out one way or another."

Raphael had always been the last one to speak so openly about things like this, and he certainly never made as much sense when he did. Maybe it was maturity sneaking up on him... or maybe he was speaking from personal experience, from when he had been with Ninjara - from when he had lost her. He seemed to know just what his brother was going through - again. Mike had always thought of the two of them as so different, best friends but opposite sides of the spectrum. These days it seemed more and more like they were looking in a mirror when they looked at one another.

"Would you do me a favor?" Mikey asked.

"Yeah... you know I will."

"Tell Master Splinter and April what happened."

Raphael thought about it for a few seconds then nodded. "If that's what you want."

"I do. But…"

"What?"

"I'm not going to be here when they get back. Could you send Oyuki to her place so I can talk to her alone?"

Raph put his hand on Mike's shoulder. "No problem."


	20. 20

April walked into the lair behind Splinter and Oyuki, who, themselves, followed Don and Leo. None of them had spoken during the drive from Hartford and the silence continued even now, on what should have been a joyous reunion. April knew why she and Oyuki and Splinter had been quiet, but that didn't account for the others' silence.

When they entered, Raphael was sitting on the couch, staring at the blank television screen. He stood up and met his brothers halfway into the room. "Guys, c'mere for a sec, will ya?" he said, his voice low.

Don and Leo looked at one another and then at the people behind them before following Raph to the other side of the room.

"What is it? Is Mikey okay?" Leonardo asked.

"He's fine. He's just... he's not here right now."

"Where is he?" Don asked, growing worried.

"Just not here," Raphael repeated.

"You let him leave? You know he isn't in any condition to..." Don stopped when he realized he was growing loud.

"He asked if we could tell April and Splinter what happened," Raph went on.

"And Oyuki..?" Leo pressed.

"He wants to tell her himself. So just hold off on saying anything until after she leaves."

"Is he sure about this?"

"Damn sure."

Leonardo nodded slowly. Over the course of the past couple months, trusting Michaelangelo's judgment had become a dangerous game. Leo wasn't sure about this turn of events at all.

Don was even less sure. He tightened his jaw and nodded stiffly.

"Thanks, guys," Raph told them. He stepped towards the weary travelers who had found themselves seats on the sofa. "Oyuki, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Oyuki looked up and stood. Why did she not like the sound of this? "What's going on?" she asked as they walked away from the others. "Where's Mike?"

"That's what I need to talk to you about. Things have... gotten weird since you guys left."

"How so?"

Raph took hold of her hand. She hadn't expected him to do that - not ever. "It's something he wants to tell you, himself," he said.

Oyuki wasn't sure if it was hormones, the trip, giving up smoking, or the cold reception, but she was getting angry and wasn't about to try and hide it. "Just tell me what the hell is going on around here!" she demanded. "Where's Mikey?"

"He's at your apartment," Raph said, lowering his voice and motioning with his hand that Oyuki should do the same. "He wants you to meet him there tonight."

She calmed herself and matched his lower tone. "Is he okay? Did something happen?"

"He'll tell you," Raph said. "I wish I could say, but I promised him I wouldn't."

Oyuki was getting frightened. She had already been arguing with herself about if... **when** she would tell Mike that she was pregnant - and how it happened. She knew that it would hurt him to find out what she had done. And now, if something had happened to him while she had been gone...

"I need to talk to him, too," she said. "Alone."

Raph nodded. It was Mike's show now. It was time for him to tell her, or not tell her what he had done. Raph just hoped that Mike had the strength left to follow through.

-

Michaelangelo sat on April's couch in the darkness. He still didn't know why he was doing this or what he would say to Oyuki when she got there. He had been finding new courage lately and had even mailed his confession letters on the way to the apartment that very evening. But that had been relatively easy - they were letters to people he had never met, who would never know him - who's faces he would never have to see. But telling Oyuki... he still wasn't sure. She wasn't a stranger, she was his friend - and friends are harder than strangers to ask forgiveness from. He'd even gone over it in his mind; word-for-word, he dictated to himself what he wanted to say. And word-for-word he knew they were the wrong ones.

_Just get here,_ Oyuki, he thought. _I'll figure it out from there._

He could hear her footsteps on the stairs now, she was working her way up slowly. Slower... she walked to the door and turned the knob, stepping into the darkness. He didn't look up towards where she stood.

"Mikey?" she asked.

Mike swallowed. He hadn't heard her voice in so long... "I'm here," he said.

"Why is it so dark in here?"

He felt the healing scar on his wrist. "Don't turn the light on. Not yet."

She closed the door and stepped inside, sliding around the furniture to where the turtle sat on the couch. She sat down beside him and folded her hands on her lap. "I missed you."

_How much?_ he thought. "I missed you, too."

They both fell silent. Mike knew why he wasn't speaking - his courage had fled. He thought that he would be able to tell her, to say something. But it hadn't worked that way, not now that she was actually there. He wondered why she wasn't saying more.

_Maybe Raph already told her,_ he thought, balling up a fist and releasing it. Or maybe she has someone else on her mind.

"I got your letter," he told her.

She lowered her head. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

This wasn't getting anywhere, one of them had to speak up. They each hoped it would be the other - but neither of them did. Mike felt Oyuki's small hand touch the back of his own. He twisted his grip and wrapped his fingers around hers.

"Something... happened while you were in Japan," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... oh, hell..." he stood up and started to pace. "I..." he couldn't say it, so he changed the subject. "How was your old friend?" _Shit! Why did I just say that?_

Oyuki got to her feet and stepped to the window, looking out into the city. "He... he's fine."

"Good to know," Mike turned away and hugged himself. He heard Oyuki walk up behind him, felt her put her hand on his shoulder. He knew her touch was coming. He jumped, anyway.

"Mikey... what is going on?"

He turned around and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. "I can't tell you... not now. Not here." He could scarcely believe that he had the courage to hold on to her while she was awake.

Her hands hung at her side for a few seconds before she raised them, returning his hug. "God, I missed you," she said. She couldn't tell him... couldn't say it out loud. She had to get out of there. This was not the place, not the time - he was right. She didn't know what it was that he was hiding, but she knew that it hurt him as much as her own truth was hurting her. "Let's get the hell out of here," she said, pulling out of the hug.

He ran his touch down her arms and took gently hold of her hands. "And go where?"

"I don't know... just somewhere else. Miles away, maybe... let's just go."

He took a deep breath. He could go. **They** could go. At the moment he didn't care where they ended up, as long as they went there together. He just had to be alone with her. No brothers, no April, no Splinter… just the two of them. Then, when they were far away from everything they knew he could tell her in pure privacy.

"Okay," Mike said, then released her hands and took up the leather jacket that lay on the arm of the couch. He put it on, being sure that the sleeve covered his wrist. "How are we going to get there?"

"We'll take my pickup truck," she said. "But first we have to get some stuff together."

"What stuff?"

He could see her shrug in the darkness. "Food, clothes, blankets... stuff."

He tilted his head. "Are we running away?"

Oyuki wrapped her arms around his neck. "Yes."


	21. Twentyone

__

June 28  
2:54 AM

April held her ear to the telephone and listened to it ring for the seventeenth time. "Still no answer," she said, hanging up. "They aren't there." 

The human looked at the faces around her - they all registered pain and regret. She couldn't believe what the turtles had just said, the story she and Splinter had just heard. The guys had all told it, each from his own perspective. Still, it seemed so unreal. How could Mikey have done something like that to himself - to the others? Mikey had always been filled with such a childlike innocence, such a light heart. 

"Maybe they just aren't answering the phone," Leo suggested. 

The others all looked at him. 

"I don't think so," Raphael replied. "I think they went somewhere." 

"Where?" Don asked. 

"If I knew that, Don..." he stopped himself before he had the chance to get angry. "I just think they went somewhere… maybe to clear their minds or something. Give them a while." 

"You seem to know a lot lately. Mind letting us in on the secret?" 

Raphael gritted his teeth. Don was still on his bad list and he wasn't exactly endearing himself to the red-attired turtle at the moment. "Practical experience," Raph said, forcing down his temper. "If **any** of us should know what it's like..." 

"You aren't the only one that went through this, what makes you think you know what's going through his head any more than the rest of us?" 

"I **don't**. All I know is how **I** would react in this same situation." 

"Fine and dandy, but Mike **isn't** you. He's nothing **like** you." 

Raphael cracked his knuckles and turned away. Donatello had no idea just how much alike he and Mike had become over the course of the past couple months. Nobody, except for maybe Splinter. Raph looked into the contemplative face of their Sensei. The ninja master knew. He was the only one that Raphael had let in on his own truth all those years before. 

There was that dark side emerging in Michaelangelo as it had his brother - but at least in Raphael's case Splinter had been able to offer a supporting hand when the turtle found he was unable to stand on his own. Now Splinter looked almost helpless. 

Raphael had no idea how he himself had become so mature. He'd never been the one to speak the compassionate words or trust the most. _Maybe it's just stupidity,_ he said to himself. He looked up at Splinter. _Or maybe I'm finally growing up._

Leonardo walked towards Mike's room and looked inside then strode back to the couch. "Guys, remember those letters he wrote last week?" 

Don and Raph nodded as Splinter and April looked on in confusion. 

"They're gone." 

"Are you sure?" Donatello asked. 

Leo nodded. "He's had them on his bookshelf since he wrote them." 

"He sent them." Raphael said. 

"How do you know?" Leonardo asked. 

"He told me he was going to." 

"And you didn't **stop** him?" Don bellowed. "You know, you've been making a lot of stupid decisions lately..." 

"How do you figure that his sending them was **stupid**? It was his decision. His letters - his fucking right!" 

"Just another sample of a long line of bullshit you've been handing out, Raph. If you hadn't let him leave tonight..." 

"Right... okay. This is his home, not a goddamn **prison**, Don!" 

Splinter stood between his sons and held out two commanding hands. "Both of you, be quiet," the rat said. "This fighting isn't going to return Michaelangelo and Oyuki. I believe that they will come back when they are both ready to do so." He looked over to April and then back at his children's humbled faces. "They both have issues that need resolving and we cannot force that resolution upon them. Have faith in them, have trust." 

Leonardo stepped forward. "Do you really think we should trust Mikey, Master? I mean, after everything that happened..." 

Splinter nodded. "That is the very reason why we should have trust in him now." 

It surprised Raphael how his own thoughts had been put into words by their sensei. Through the years they had all come to regard Leonardo as the one that was most like their aged teacher, the one most likely to share his sensibilities and feelings. But now it was Raphael that was being echoed. _Trust,_ Raph thought._ I hope we're right, Sensei._


	22. Twentytwo

__

June 28  
8:13 AM

"Hmmm...?" Michaelangelo opened his eyes in the light of the new day. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the sun. Oyuki was in the driver's seat, leading them down a tree- and cliff-lined road that seemed to be quite old, its once-black tar now faded to gray. "Where are we?" he asked tiredly. 

Oyuki looked over at him and then back at the road. "Connecticut, I guess." 

"Did you drive all night?" 

"There's one good thing about jet-lag..." 

Mike straightened up and yawned. The cliffs were now only on their right, on their left was a drop-off that disappeared into a forest of pine trees and what looked to Mikey to be maple - with a few white trunks of birch mixed throughout. "Are we lost?" 

Oyuki shrugged. "You can't get lost if you don't know where you're going in the first place." 

"Good point," he said. Staring out the window, he let himself get mesmerized by the woods rushing by. In the blur of green and brown he could almost see the faces of his brothers and father looking back at him, their expressions at once worried and scolding. He opened his mouth to speak to them, but stopped, remembering where he was. He blinked himself back to reality and turned to the young lady beside him. "Do you think we should be doing this?"

Oyuki kept her eyes set on the road ahead. "We can go back to New York if you want." 

She didn't sound much like she wanted to return, despite her words, and Mike had to admit that he wasn't very eager for that, either. His family was already mad at him - why wouldn't they be? All he had done was break their hearts and run away. Maybe a few days away would be good for everyone. He could talk to Oyuki in private and by the time they got back April and Splinter would already know the story. He sighed and pursed his lips.

Oyuki slowed down and turned left onto an incline. The road became older and more gravely, the double yellow lines worn down to two black stripes on the gray road. The trees gathered closer, brushing against the passenger side of the old white pick-up truck. Mike rolled up the window so he wouldn't run the risk of getting smacked in the face by an errant branch. 

They came to an old rusty bridge and slowed down. The pair looked down at the slow stream below, to where a fisherman stood in the water, knee-deep in his waders. He flipped his pole back three times before letting the fly skim across the calm surface then looked up and waved as they drove past. Mike shrunk back, trying not to be seen. 

They came to the end of the bridge and glanced up at a metal sign that hung on one of the I-beams. The sign was as rusted as the bridge itself, but the white letters were still easy to make out. 

"_Colebrook Reservoir_," Mike read out loud. 

Oyuki smiled. "Nice place..." 

They drove back into the thick of the trees for a couple minutes then came out into an open area where the woods on the right faded back, leaving an overgrown grassy area. The trees continued on the left, but they could see through them to the stream that the fisherman had been standing in. Up ahead they could see ancient hog backed hills, their slopes thick with green trees. 

Mike rolled his window back down and took a deep breath. The air was dusty yet smelled of water and mud. The woods to the right pulled back farther as they traveled on and even the black-tar lines vanished into a near-gravel road. The trees on the left thickened and the stream vanished through them, but Oyuki still drove on, up a long hill. They came to a curve and the trees suddenly gave way to a wider river with sandy banks. On the opposite side of the river the woods were thicker than ever, and were situated far up a rocky slope. Oyuki stopped the truck and put it in park. 

"What?" Mike asked. 

Oyuki didn't say a word, but climbed out of the vehicle and looked over the edge of the road. Mike did the same, staring silently at the sight ahead of them. Just a foot from the gravel there was an unguarded incline, and a hundred feet down the main body of the reservoir began. The top three feet of a turn-of-the-century steel bridge thrust out of the water some distance below them and reflected in the glassy calm of the water. 

Dirt roads, more like paths, slid up hills and along the shore, here and there leading into the water. Along some of the roads were short stone walls, built up with the materials that had been on hand; some of the walls marked off more than just the paths, but separated into squares that could have at some point marked property boundaries. Piles of brick and stones at the center of some of the squares marked the foundations of what had probably been homes, torn down decades before to make way for the reservoir at it's construction. The stones had spread and were coated with dried mud and silt that probably deposited there when the dam was shut and the water rose above them. 

"Where I come from," Mike said, "reservoirs are ugly things." 

Oyuki shook her head. "This is... beautiful." 

Michaelangelo looked at her and then down the road. "Look at it... it's... I dunno..." 

Oyuki nodded. "Do you suppose the water ever gets low enough so the bridge is all the way out of the water?" 

"I wonder what's on the other side."

Mike looked across the water. While the side they were on held a grayed-out tar and gravel roads the only thing they could see on the other side was a single dirt road leading up from the water - at about the place the bridge's other end would be if the water were down. The road disappeared up the incline into the woods on the other side. 

"I betcha' a lot of people come fishing here," Mike said. 

"Probably." 

"But maybe not on the other side - not until the water is down all the way." 

"Unless they have boats, that is. Then they probably don't wander far from them," Oyuki added. 

"I bet there wouldn't be anyone over there for maybe… months." 

"At least." 

"No people... no phones... no problem..." 

"Nope." 

They looked out over the view for a few seconds and then at each other. Mike reached out and took Oyuki's hand, squeezing it. 

"That place we were looking for..." Mike said. "I think we found it." 

-----------------------------

**__**

Grow Young

(Heather Nova)

Sitting here on the water's edge now that the storm is gone

First time in years it feels like nothing's wrong

There've been a lot of changes, I was so lost for a while

Sitting here I remember how it's easy to smile

Oh let me grow young

Like a brand new day, Like I've just begun

Like a shiver like a rush, Like a soul I might touch

Let me grow young

Nobody to tell me where to go, Nobody to call

Just me and the kiskedees, And my guitar

Oh let me grow young

Like a brand new day, Like I've just begun

Like a shiver like a rush, Like a soul I might touch

Let me grow young

Gotta try to remember this feeling

Gotta store it up inside

Bring it out when it's cold in the city

And I'm worried and tired

Oh let me grow young

Like a brand new day, Like I've just begun

Like a shiver like a rush, Like a soul I might touch

Let me grow young


	23. TwentyThree

****

New York

__

June 29  
7:20 AM

April walked into the lair's kitchen and sat down at the table. Splinter was the only other one there, the turtles were asleep after a full day and evening of searching for Mike and Oyuki. They hadn't found them - any trace of them. It had been April's own investigation that had produced the most information - a search of the apartment that she and Oyuki shared. 

"She took clothes, a tent, lanterns, blankets, food..." she paused, fiddling with the salt shaker. "I mean **they** took it..." 

Splinter let out a breath. "They are planning a lengthy trip." 

April nodded. "They took her pick-up truck... I'd guess they aren't staying in town." 

"Most likely not," Splinter was tired, he hadn't slept since the airplane ride over from Japan and was now forcing himself to stay awake even longer. 

April put down the salt shaker and sat forward. "Why would they just run away like that?" 

"I don't believe it was as simple as that, April," Splinter said. 

"I know," she said. "How do you think Oyuki's holding up?" 

He sighed. "This is a difficult time for her," he said. "She is young, confused." 

"They both are." 

"Yes." 

There was a silence now between them as each hoped the young ones would be able to sort out their hell and return home to the family that loved them. 

****

Colebrook Reservoir, CT

__

June 29  
4:11 PM

Oyuki opened her eyes and looked at the silhouette standing above her. She grunted and rolled to her side, turning her face from the afternoon sun. 

"Hey," Mike said, nudging her gently. "Wake up sleepyhead." 

Oyuki shielded her eyes and looked back towards the turtle. "Ugh... leave me alone, will ya?" she whined. "I'm tired." 

"You've been sleeping for four hours already," he said. 

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Damn jetlag," she said. She looked around her at the blankets Mike had laid in the truck's bed, they made a decent, if not totally comfortable place to sleep. By perspective, sleeping on the streets had been much harder. "Just five more minutes," she said, lying back down. 

Mike jumped into the back of the truck. "C'mon... we have stuff to get done." 

"What _stuff_..?" she asked groggily, covering her head with a light blanket. 

He yanked the blanket away and pulled her gently up to sitting. "I took a walk upriver - remember where it was shallow?" 

"Yeah. And?" 

"And... if you wanted to we could cross there and walk up to this point," he motioned to the area across from the nearly-submerged bridge. 

"Are you crazy?" 

Mike shrugged. "Maybe." 

"That's gotta be close to five, six miles..." 

"We wanted to get away from it all..." 

Oyuki scratched her chin. "I guess so. We gonna carry all this stuff?" 

"Most of what we need. The rest we can leave in the truck." 

"Oh, there you go..." Oyuki allowed herself slip out a little sarcasm. "And where are we going to put the truck? Remember the signs we saw? You ain't allowed to park here overnight, we'll get towed." 

Michaelangelo faced the woods behind them. "One thing a ninja knows about is camouflage," he said. "I can make this pick-up vanish completely." 

"You can?" 

"I promise." 

The girl thought about it for a few seconds. It would be a long walk, carrying heavy equipment and supplies - not exactly the best thing for a woman to do when she was with child. But she still hadn't told him, and this wasn't the right time. What would her excuse be if she wimped out on this idea? And it **was** a good idea, she had to admit to herself. 

She felt her stomach begin to turn and swallowed hard. _Frickin' morning sickness..._ she thought. 

She took her first good look at Mike since she had woken up - he was still wearing the leather jacket, even in the midst of the afternoon heat. Not that she was acting any saner than he was at the moment, they were each hiding something from the other and neither was willing to be the one to speak up about their story just yet. She'd find out about that old jacket sooner or later, just like he'd find out what she was hiding physically and emotionally deep inside. 

"So, when do you want to start out?" she sighed. 

"Tonight. Right now, though, let's get the truck hid away." 

Mike jumped out of the truck and gave her a hand down then climbed into the driver's seat. He started up the engine and drove across the grass-laden field into the woods, guiding it past trees and large boulders until he came to a perfect spot. Oyuki walked behind the vehicle, fluffing the grass back up where the truck's tires had pressed it down, by the time she got into the midst of the trees Mike was already taking out their essentials. 

"Don't forget the tent," she said. 

"Tent? We brought a tent?" 

Oyuki rolled her eyes and reached into the truck's bed, bulling out a large duffel bag. "What do you think this is?" 

Mike shrugged. "I guess we did. Boy, you sure come prepared. I'm taking you with me **next** time I run away, too." 

She laughed. Somehow he had a way of making her do that, even if unintentionally. "C'mon, let's get this junk unloaded." 


	24. TwentyFour

****

Colebrook Reservoir, CT

__

June 29  
8:31 PM

Mike held the flashlight out in front of him as he walked. Sunset had been late, so it had only just gotten dark enough that they would need help seeing the ground at their feet. They had already crossed at the river's shallow point and Mike could hear Oyuki just behind him, her feet crunching on leaves and twigs as they negotiated the darkened woods. Once in a while she would hear a noise and gasp, running to his side. Then she'd smile sheepishly and fall back into position behind him. 

"We're almost there," he said. 

"Almost **where**? I can't see a damn thing..." 

Mike heard her stop, then stopped, himself, turning and shining the light in her direction. She was leaning against a tree, holding onto her stomach. 

"You okay?" he asked, walking to her side. 

She waved him off and put her hand over her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick..." 

"Jeez..." he said, helping her to sit. "I'm sorry I'm making you walk so far." 

"No, that's not it..." she stopped herself. "I was coming down with something in Japan, I think it just caught up to me." 

Mike helped her slip the heavy pack off her back and laid it down on the ground. "Well, this isn't helping any, either." 

He took his own pack off and sat on the forest floor. He put his hand on his chest, through his plastron he could feel his heart pounding and his head was starting to hurt. He'd thought he would have been able to make the walk with no problem, that he wouldn't have to take a break. It didn't look that way now, but at least it was Oyuki that had made the first move to stop and rest. 

"Lets stay here for the night," he suggested. 

"Fine by me," she said quickly. 

Mike stood and walked off, then came back with an armload of dry wood. "Got a lighter?" 

"A fire?" Oyuki asked. 

"Sure, why not?" 

She shrugged. "Bugs." 

"Bugs?" 

"Bugs love light. You've seen them hanging around streetlights, right? Well, those are just city bugs -- think of how country bugs are going to react." 

If Mike had an eyebrow he would have risen it. "_Country bugs_..?" 

Oyuki started to laugh at herself, she didn't realize she had been rambling. "Let's just light the damn fire." 

They cleared an area of the ground and built up a small barrier with some of the many stones that lay on the ground around them. Mike went off to set up the tent and Oyuki went to work on the fire, which was burning brightly by the time the turtle was done. They both sat on the ground next to the flames and watched them dance in the night air. 

He'd been trying to work up his courage during the walk and finally thought he had enough to say something - anything. He opened his mouth. 

"Hungry?" he asked, wincing when the word came out.

"Uh, no. I'm still a little queasy." 

"I'm not really hungry, either." He reached under his sleeve and touched his scar. "Y'know... I, uh... I haven't seen you with a cigarette since you got back." 

"I quit." 

"Just like that?" 

"More or less." 

Silence again. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before sliding over to Oyuki's side.

"You... _trust_ me, right?" he asked. 

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

He sighed, draping his arm over her shoulders. She laid her head back against the leather jacket and looked up at the sky, trying to see the stars through the treetops. She looked so beautiful in the firelight, so innocent. 

"If I told you something... I mean, something that I did... something bad..." he stuttered. 

She looked over at him. "What?" 

He took his arm away and rubbed his face. "Nothing. Never mind." 

"No, I will **not** _never mind_. Are you okay?" 

"No. I don't know. Not really." 

She bit her lip, realizing that she was still keeping her own secret. "If you don't want to tell me it's okay, I understand..." 

"I **do** want to tell you. I just don't know how." 

Oyuki thought back to when the turtle had been blinded in Jerusalem and after when he was captured and tortured by the United States government. That had such a strong effect on him but he didn't show to his brothers how deeply he had been torn apart by the events. It was only Oyuki that he let see the whole of the pain. When she first saw him after his rescue he seemed indifferent, almost joking about the ordeal. But when they were left alone Mike's humor melted away. He fell crying into her arms. She held on to him as he told her everything that had been done to him. He told her about how the guards hadn't fed him or given him and had beat him bloody when he asked for water. He told her how the doctor had given him electric shocks and put a cigarette out on his flesh. 

And now, in the firelight, she could see that old familiar pain resurfacing. She turned to the fire and focused on the flickering flames, then faced him again and reached out, taking his hand. "I'm here for you, Mike. I'll listen whenever you're ready to tell me." 

Mike reached over and brushed the hair away from her eyes. "Thank you." 

She didn't look away. The light played within her gaze and he let himself get lost there, staring into their intensity. 

"_Kirei-na hitomi-dane_," he said. 

She blushed, turning her face away. She had never thought that she had beautiful eyes, she had always hated them. They were an indication of what she was - a half-breed; half-Japanese, half something else. What else? She didn't even know. She didn't know why she'd just let Mike look into them so deeply.

"I'm sorry," he said, staring down at his palms.

Oyuki put her hand on his and rested her head on his chest. "I need to tell you something," she said. 

When had this happened? When had it gone from him confessing to her doing the same? He touched her hair. 

"What is it?" 

She swallowed. "Did you ever wonder why my eyes are blue?" 

"All the time." 

She had never said this out loud, had never told anyone the truth about her past. 

"My mother's Japanese. I haven't seen her in a long time, I don't know if she's still alive or what." 

Mike rubbed the top of her hair. "I'm sorry..." 

Oyuki sighed. "I never met my father. I guess he was American or Australian or something. He got her pregnant..." she paused, a tear welling in her eye. "She thought he would stay with her, marry her... but he left. He just vanished." 

She sat up and he wrapped his arms around her. She stared into the fire. 

"After I was born," Oyuki continued, "My mom had to move us from place to place 'cause she was single and had a baby. Nobody would give her a job." 

"They can't do that, that's discrimination," Mike said. 

"Things are different there... or they used to be. It was either a baby or a job - and if a woman had one she couldn't have the other. I don't know what happened, exactly, but she started comparing me to my father. She said I acted like him, that I looked like him... that I had his eyes." Oyuki swallowed hard as her stomach began to turn. "She hated looking in my eyes, so I stopped looking at her. She said I was too much like _him_... like my father. She said I was too _white_. Just a bastard _gaijin_ child." 

Mike held Oyuki closer to him. "It's okay… don't worry, you're here now. That's all over..." 

"No," she sobbed, "It's not over. It'll never be over. You can't forget something like that, you can't just take it out of your past. Jesus... she said I was like **him**... if I was like anyone it was **her**." She stopped, doubling her fist as she worked up the courage to go on. "You remember Hideki? The guy I told you about in the letter?" 

Mike hung his head. "Oyuki, don't…" 

Oyuki pushed him away and stood up. "She saw me hanging out with him. She called me a whore. She said that I was probably earning money…"

"She was wrong. You didn't." Mike's mind began to race. "You _couldn't_…"

Oyuki stared at him. "I did."

Mike sat on the forest floor, looking up at her. Any words of support he had slipped away in the midst of the revelation. "_Do-iu imi..?_" 

Oyuki turned her back to the turtle and hugged herself. "But... not until afterwards." 

Mike stood and walked to Oyuki, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I don't understand." 

She hung her head. "After I ran away I had no place to sleep. I had to stay on the sidewalk or in an alley. But sometimes it got cold, or rainy. And one day Hideki came by and offered to let me stay the night at his place. I took him up on his offer..." 

"You... slept with him?" 

"I had to. He gave me a choice. I could stay there... with him for the night... or I could go back down to the sidewalk. I stayed. I thought it would only be that once, that I wouldn't have to do it again. But he came back the next rainy night and I went with him again..." 

Mike felt a familiar tightening in his chest and he fought it back. "How long?" 

"Of and on," she said, shrugging. "For a few months... up until Chien Khan came along and I met you guys." She turned around and wrapped her arms around him. "And I met **you**." 

He didn't return her hug, there was too much pain in his chest now. He slid out of her embrace and sat on the sand and leaves, leaning forward with his hand pressed against his plastron. 

"I'm sorry, Mike..." she turned and stepped into the darkness, out of the reach of the fire's light. "God... you hate me now..." 

Mike shook his head and fought for breath as the pain began to subside. "No..." he breathed. "No, Oyuki... I don't hate you. I could never hate you..." 

The young lady stepped back into Michelangelo's view. "What's wrong?" she asked, concern showing in her eyes. 

He motioned for her to sit down and didn't speak until she had. "Chest pains," he said, clearing his throat. "Donny said I'd have problems for a while." 

"What kind of problems?" she asked, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Why?" 

He took a deep breath and his chest stung. "Heart problems," he said, taking her small hand in his. "And I can't tell you why... not now." 

"Why not?" she wasn't sure if she should be angered by his evasiveness after having told him her own secret... **one** of her secrets. "It seems like a night for confessions." 

"Not this one... not yet." 

He looked at her again. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears, her hair was a mess, her clothes covered with leaves and pine needles... and she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her before. He closed his eyes and pulled her to him. She breathed gently on his face and he let himself enjoy the sensation of her body close to his, her heart beating just inches from his own, separated by flesh and shell but still near enough to feel. 

"_Aishiteru_," he whispered in her ear. 

She slid away from him and he saw shock in her face. "Mike... do you know what you just said..?" 

He looked down, away from her eyes. "I'm sorry... I just... I had to tell you." 

She cupped her hands over her face and stood, running into the night. 

"Oyuki, wait!" he ran after her, stopping when the pain returned. He collapsed to his knees. "Jesus, Oyuki... I'm sorry..." He laid down on the ground, rolling to his side and clutching his left arm.

Through the dark it was hard to see the trees, but she somehow made her way around them. She stopped and stumbled forward, finding a large trunk and resting her back against it. She lowered herself to the ground, crying.

He'd just told her that he loved her. For the longest time, since her evenings with Hideki, she had thought that loving someone was a shameful thing. She had learned to push it back so far that it had been barely recognizable for what it was. She didn't want to love, not again. The people that she'd loved the most in her life had been the ones that hurt her the worst. Her mother, Hideki...they hurt her. They still haunted her thoughts, telling her that anything real she felt was unreal to the other. And Mike... he was so different. 

__

He's not even human... she thought, trying to justify her doubts. _Shit... he's more human than they were..._

She admitted to herself that her reaction had nothing to do with his physical differences, it was all her. Her issues with trust, her fear of love. He was someone she liked being around... they laughed, they had fun, they cried on one another's shoulders. They told one another their deepest secrets. In her chest she felt a fluttering that traveled to her throat. She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. She could see his face there. He had proven so many times that she could trust him, that he wouldn't lie to her or hurt her. He was the only person in her life that she had ever trusted so much. 

__

A night for confessions, she repeated in her mind, standing. She walked slowly back to the camp, following the faint light of the distant fire. It took her longer to get there than it had for her to go, but it gave her time to think. She went over in her mind what she would say to him but none of the ideas seemed right. Walking into the small clearing, Oyuki looked around. She couldn't see him so she made her way to the tent and looked inside. It was empty. 

"Mike?" she called out. "Mike, I... I'm sorry I took off..." 

He didn't answer. 

__

I hurt him, she thought, walking slowly around the edge of the clearing. _He probably went back to the truck... I wouldn't blame him. I don't want to be anywhere near me, either..._

She leaned against a tree and scanned the ground with her eyes. Her gaze fell upon a dark form lying at the base of another, larger tree. 

"Mikey?" she said, shuffling over to him. She reached down and touched his arm. He didn't move. "My god, Mikey? Are you okay?" 

__

Heart problems... she thought. She put a hand in front of his open mouth - he was breathing. She shook him. "Mikey, c'mon... wake up! Can you hear me?" 

He grunted and his eyelids fluttered. "...Oyuki?" 

"Jesus..." she said, smiling past the fear. "Don't ever do that to me again." 

He sat up with her help. "I'm sorry..." 

"Stop saying that," she told him. "Let's get you into the tent." 

She pulled on him until he was standing on his own unsteady legs then wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they walked him to the tent. She guided him inside and then helped him take off the leather jacket. 

"Lay down," she said. "I'm gonna' put out the fire." 

She walked out and tossed a few handfuls of dirt on the flames, then watched as they died away. Then, with the flashlight in hand, she made her way back to the tent. Mike was already sleeping when she got there. 

__

I **hope** he's just asleep, she thought, putting her fingers on his wrist to feel for a pulse. 

She felt a beat, but it was past something unexpected. His skin felt strange, not right... she turned the flashlight towards his wrist and her jaw dropped open. A smooth green scar marred the turtle's skin - a jagged gash that was still healing. She covered her mouth and doused the light, lying down next to him, then reached over and wrapped her hand around his wrist. 

He opened his eyes and looked into the darkness. He could feel her lying next to him, her soft touch on his marred skin. He reached over with his other hand, touching her face. He'd gathered enough strength from his unsought sleep that he was now ready to face the truth. 

"I understand if you don't love me, too," he whispered. "But I just had to tell you." 

"Why did it take you so long?" 

He thought about it for a moment. "I guess I didn't want to lose you." 

"Mike..." she began, shaking her head although she knew he couldn't see it. "You aren't gonna' lose me. You're my best friend." 

He smiled... it was enough. What mattered was that she didn't hate him after what he had said. Now, if only he could tell her what he'd done while she was gone. He felt her run her fingertip along the scar. She had discovered that much, she was no doubt wondering what had happened. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her body near. Was she shaking? He kissed her gently on the forehead and took a breath. 

"Do you want me to tell you what happened over the past couple months?" he asked. 

He felt her nod. 

__

Please, Oyuki... please don't run away from me after you hear this... "About a week after you guys left..." 

__

--------------------------------------

THIS IS ME  
(Randy Travis) 

Lately I get the feeling   
There's a feeling that you're holding in   
Why do you keep your distance   
As close as we've been?   
Do you think your silence is saying   
There' nothing wrong with you?   
This is me...   
You're not talking to. 

This is me...   
The one who knows you inside out   
The one you've leaned on til now   
Don't you know I'm still here for you?   
So what do you think you're doing?   
Who do you think you're fooling?   
This is me...   
You're not talking to 

You can run to me   
No matter what you're running from   
If it's something I'm doing   
I'll get it undone   
Just don't let me be a stranger   
To what you're going through 

This is me...   
The one who knows you inside out   
The one you've leaned on til now   
Don't you know I'm still here for you?   
So what do you think you're doing?   
Who do you think you're fooling?   
This is me...   
You're not talking to 

Hey this is me...   
You're not talking to 


	25. TwentyFive

****

Colebrook Reservoir, CT

__

July 8  
11:21 AM

Oyuki sat on the sand and watched Michelangelo. The turtle stood on the shore ten feet away from her, a fishing pole in his hand. He had found the pole buried in the mud - it had probably been lost over the side of a boat at some point when the water was high. The reel was rusted out, so he had un-spooled all the fishing line and tied it to the end, creating a makeshift reed pole. They'd also come across some hooks and various lures wedged between rocks - other obvious casualties of the water's high point. Mike and Oyuki had been having fun looking around for various bugs to use for bait, and now Mikey was having even more fun - fishing for the first time in his life. 

Oyuki had been shocked when he told her what had happened to Mike while she had been gone. She didn't know what to say in response, so she just made her presence speak for itself. She was there for him - that wouldn't change. It didn't matter what he had done, he was still Mikey - still her best friend. 

But she hadn't told him everything. The baby remained a secret that she was no longer prepared to reveal, not in the light of Mike's own shocking confession. She didn't know how he would react to the news, so she took her time and waited for the perfect moment. So far that moment had not come. 

But for now they were happy - more happy than she could have imagined. Since they had made it across from the bridge it had become a long, calming camping trip. Neither one of them were in a rush to return to the hurly-burly life that the city held for them, and there was no real reason to do so, anyway. They had brought food, though the reserves had dwindled somewhat and Mike had let Oyuki in on the secret of certain edible plants that he had read about. Soon, with any luck, they would also have fish to eat. 

"I got one!" Mike yelled, scrambling up the bank with a small, pathetic-looking fish dangling from the line. 

The fish sprang to life and flipped off the rusted hook. It flopped down the sand to the reservoir, making a desperate break for freedom. Mike dropped the pole and scrambled after the over-active fish, lunging forward and unable to stop himself from splashing down in the water. Oyuki laughed out loud when Mike broke the surface and shrugged. 

"Well..." he said sheepishly. "I **had** it." 

"The mighty hunter," Oyuki joked as she stood. She wobbled a bit and nearly tipped over. _Ugh... symptom number seventy-two: vertigo_, she thought. 

Mike trudged out of the water and sloshed up the hill. "Uh... would you believe me if I told you I meant to do that?" 

"Not a chance in hell." 

"I thought as much." 

He hugged her suddenly, getting her wet with the water that dripped readily off him. She shoved him away and he slipped, rolling down the hill. He stood meekly, covered from head to foot with sand and dry leaves. 

"Serves you right!" she said, smiling as she trotted to his side. 

His lips curled into a childish grin and he stepped forward. She tried to back away, knowing completely what he was up to. He bounded forward, grabbing her by the waist and flinging her into the water then jumping in after. She shot to the surface and splashed him in the face. 

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. "There! Now we're both wet!" 

Oyuki leaned into his embrace and smiled. Though he had given up the secret of his feelings for her she had not yet reciprocated. Somehow she wasn't even sure how she felt - it was a pleasurable sting in her chest, a shortness of breath that came and went... she hadn't felt that way with Hideki. With Mikey felt stronger, more real. 

Or maybe, she thought, it was just the hormones. 

Whatever it was, it felt right. She looked up into his eyes and put her hand on his cheek. Without thinking, she drew him into a kiss. The action was an awkward one, as different as the two were. Their features did not quite fit, but it didn't matter. It was so right.

Mike felt his breath catch in his throat. He closed his eyes and held her tightly to him, touching her wet hair and running his fingers down the curve of her back. He had already told her that he loved her… how he wished that she would tell him that she loved him too.

Oyuki put her hand on Michaelangelo's shoulder and pulled out of the kiss. She blushed and tried to turn away, but stopped herself. She looked back into his face and opened her mouth to speak, finding no words to fit the moment. 

Mike took hold of her hand and brought her near to him again, pressing her body against his and drawing her into another kiss. 

-----------------------------------------------------

****

New York

__

July 14  
9:13 PM

"I hope Oyuki's okay," April said. "She hasn't even been to see a doctor yet. If anything happens…"

April and Splinter were sitting at the table in the women's apartment, as they did most evenings, going over the details of the documentary's editing. It was tedious and difficult without Oyuki's help; after all, she was the one who was most accustomed to the equipment. 

Splinter put a hand on April's shoulder and tried to impart some of his silent strength to the woman. He didn't need to speak, she knew how he felt about the disappearance of his son and Oyuki. 

"I am sure that Michaelangelo will be able to care for her," the ninja said. "He is young, but has lived much." 

April lowered her eyes. "I know," she said. "But it hardly seems like Mikey is able to care for himself lately. How is he going to take care of a pregnant girl out in the middle of God-knows-where?" 

"Have trust, April." 

"I trust them," she told him, lowering her eyes. "I just hope they to know when to come home." 

The rat's ears twitched and he looked up. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation at another time," he said, motioning towards the door with his head. 

A moment later the door swung open and three trench-coated turtles strode in solemnly. Donatello flopped himself down onto the couch, Raph made his way to the refrigerator, and Leonardo joined April and Splinter at the table. He didn't mention that there was no sign of Mike and Oyuki - he didn't need to. 

Each night the turtles went out looking for the two, and each night they came back with no good news to report, the trail having long since grown cold. Each patrol seemed to grow shorter, and each report of no news came as that much less of a surprise. This night was no exception.

"How's it going?" Leo asked, pointing to the pile of post-filming notes on the table top. 

"Slowly," April said, flipping a page. "I didn't realize we missed so much stuff while we were there." 

"I shall have to do some voice-overs for many portions of the film," Splinter said. 

"So, uh... how was your evening?" April asked, sure that she didn't want to know. 

Leo slid out of his trench coat and shrugged. "Okay. Not much going on out there." 

They all fell silent. It was that way most of the time now. All of their attitudes had changed, shifted almost entirely. Without Mike's presence it was as if they had all slid a little into the hollow space he had left behind, and so dislocated themselves from what they had always been. 

Raph was no longer the angriest among them, it almost seemed as if he had been tamed by Mike's ordeal and he took longer to rile these days. His only real trigger anymore was Don, whose anger had intensified as Raph's had decreased. The two had made obvious their enmity towards one another and Leonardo was scarcely able to bring them together for sparring sessions without worrying that one was actually going to try and kill the other. 

Don spoke fewer and fewer kind words as the days wore on. His change had been the greatest and there was little that anyone could say that would ease his conscience. More than once he had damned himself verbally for not coming to the right conclusions at the right time before Michaelangelo had gone too far. He was beginning to doubt his own judgment, his own intelligence. 

It was often the case that Don and Raph would not speak to one another at all but through Leonardo, who had become a switchboard, struggling to keep the lines of communication open. But those lines often broke down, as they had this night. All evening Raphael had been wearing Don down with snippy comments and rough jokes. Raph called it joking, Don thought it merely insulting. 

The two turtles glared at one another across the room for a few moments, then Donatello stood and walked towards the apartment door without a word. The others watched him leave, wondering but not asking where he was off to. He wouldn't have told him anyway. That was just the kind of person he had become. 

Don took the stairs three at a time and burst out of the building, onto the street. He kept on walking for several blocks, not really trying to figure out where his feet were taking him. He stopped at a street lamp and leaned against the pole, burying his hands in the pockets of his coat and letting out a breath. 

"What do you want, Raph?" 

Raphael slid out of the shadows and strode up to his brother, leaning against the other side of the pole. 

"Nice night." 

Don started walking away and Raphael paced him. 

"Did you want something?" Don asked without slowing.

"I'd like to talk to you, if that's okay." 

"Fine," he stopped and faced his brother. "Talk." 

Raph was taken aback, now that he had his brother's attention he didn't know what to do with it. "I, uh... I mean in general." 

"Well, once you figure out what you want to say I'll think about listening," Don snapped and turned away.

Raphael grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. "What the hell is your problem?" 

"My problem is that I can't seem to do anything fucking right lately!" Don said. His eyes widened and he looked down, he hadn't intended on saying that out loud. And certainly not to Raphael. 

Raphael. Every time Donatello heard his voice or saw his face it made him want to scream. To punch something. And whenever Raph touched him it made Don's skin crawl. 

"Let me go," Donatello gritted his teeth and glared at his brother.

"No," Raphael said, tightening his grip. "I don't think so." 

His anger came to a head and Donatello swung into a kick. Raph released his brother's arm and blocked the attack with relative ease. Don fell to the ground, kicking up again from that position and contacting Raphael's jaw, then launched himself to his feet and flipped over the other's back, landing behind him and spinning out to kick him in the shell. 

Raphael slid into a full split and Don's foot cleared the top of his head, then Raph rolled forward and bounded up, throwing a kick of his own at Don's plastron. It connected and Donatello fell back, the air knocked out of him. He recovered in seconds and grabbed Raph's fist as it came near. Don twisted, flipping Raph over into a wall. He hit the bricks upside-down and fell onto his head. 

Raph rolled to his knees and shook the fuzz out of his mind then stood and pointed at Don. "_Bukkoroshite yaru_," he yelled and dove forward. 

Donatello jumped over him, mashing his foot into Raphael's neck and then tumbling away, grabbing him by the ankle and twisting. Raph fell, rolled, and came up with his knee, hitting Don in the face. Don bared his teeth and blood drizzled from the corner of his mouth. He tightened his fist and stepped forward. 

As the next punch was thrown, a car squealed around a nearby corner. The turtles looked up as one, and each flipped out of the way, to opposite sides of the street. The car veered and aimed at Raphael, who jumped away. The car spun out, hitting him in the legs with the rear bumper and the ninja flew back into a telephone pole, striking it with his head. Raphael's eyes rolled back and he crumpled face-down onto the concrete. 


	26. TwentySix

****

New York

__

Cont.

The car was still now, but only for a moment. The driver opened the door and quickly jumped out, running to the turtle and nudging him with his foot then reached down, rooting through Raphael's jacket pocket. 

Raph moaned, his mind dragging itself back towards lucidity. Surprised by his intended victim, the thief jumped back and drew a revolver from his waist strap, aiming it at the turtle's head. 

Across the street, hidden in the shallow dimness beside a dumpster, Donatello watched the events unfold before him. It took him only seconds to run the distance to where his brother lay helpless under the stranger's gun, and when he struck the man it came as a complete surprise.

Don's foot hit the human dead-center of his back and the he fell forward, on top of Raphael. The gun fell from his grip, rattling to the ground without going off. The man scrambled for it - but Don reached the weapon first, flipping the it up with his foot, into his own hand. He grabbed the thief by the shirt and hauled him to his feet… pressing the business end of the pistol to the bridge of his nose. 

"Don't fuck with my brother!" Don yelled, his finger tightening on the trigger. 

The human gasped, looking into the angry green face. "Jesus Christ!" he yelled, clawing at the turtle's hand, trying to get him to release his grip on the shirt. "Shit! I thought you were dead!" 

Raphael shook his head and gathered his senses. He pulled himself to standing but stopped when a stabbing pain worked it's way up his left leg and into his hip. He forced the pain away and after a few seconds the confusion cleared. He could hear Don and… someone. 

"Dead? Who the hell said I was **dead**?" Don demanded. 

"Marie did it! I swear!"

Raphael looked up and gasped. 

There stood Donatello - holding a gun to a man's head. Such a thing Raphael had never thought possible. Raph bit down and put his full weight on his uninjured leg, hopping over to Don. He placed his hand on the gun's barrel and stared into his brother's face. The other ninja didn't look back at him, but tightened his grip on the handle. 

"Donny…" Raph said evenly. "Donny, put the gun down." 

"I want to know what this asshole is talking about," he said, letting go of the shirt and wrapping his hand around the man's throat. 

"Let him go," Raph said. "For God's sake... think about it what you're doing..." 

"Oh, trust me... I'm thinking about it." He pushed the gun harder into the man's skin.

Raph gripped the barrel tighter. "I'd expect this from me, Donny… not you." 

Don's eye's focused on the thief, but his thoughts were on Raphael's words. Several anxious seconds passed before he let go of the gun, thrusting it into Raph's palm. Raph breathed in relief and stuck the revolver into his own pocket, safely away from both Don and the human.

Donatello, still glaring at the man, tightened his hold for a few seconds before pushing him to the ground and walking away and turning his back. Raphael watched him go then moved towards the stranger and tried to kneel, but ended up collapsing to the ground. He clutched his leg against the sting. 

"Now," Raph said, grabbing the man's sleeve. "Have you seen me before?" 

The human nodded in shock. "There are two of you..? But..?" 

"Tell me what happened!" 

The guy was shaking and trying to back out of the turtle's grip. "...You... you don't remember?" 

"Oh, I remember," he pulled the man closer until their faces touched. "I just want to hear it from you." 

"Shit! Okay!" he wiggled and Raph shoved him away. "I, uh... I was fighting with Marie..." 

"And?" 

"You... you came by and... pushed me on my ass. It was… it was you, right..? Or… you..?" 

Donatello turned around and stepped up to the two, looking down. "Go on," he said. 

"I... uh, you was going to go away, but Marie..." the man stuttered, looking from the face of one turtle to the other. "Marie... she... she stuck you..." 

Raphael growled. "**Where**?" 

"Shit! Uh... the neck! In the neck!" 

Don grabbed the human by the hair and threw him onto the hood of the car. "You son of a bitch!" 

Raphael struggled to his one good leg and hopped over to his furious brother, who shrugged him away and bounded towards the cowering stranger. He wrapped his fingers around the man's collar.

"Jesus Christ, Don! Ease up off him!" Raphael yelled. 

"You hear what he just said?" Donatello yelled, lifting the man up so only his toes touched the ground. "Did you hear what this bastard did to Mikey?" 

"Put him down!" 

Don looked over his shoulder at his brother then threw the man onto the asphalt. The turtle crossed his arms and glared down at him, an action reflected a moment later by Raphael. 

"Now," Raph said to the man, but glancing at Don out of the corner of his eye. "Where is Marie?" 

"She died, man! She OD'd!" 

Don scowled. "When?" 

"Last month!" 

Raphael looked at the sky and then at brother, turning his back to the man. "I think we've got something here." 

"No shit, Sherlock. What was your first fucking clue?" 

"Shut up," Raph snapped, then lowered his voice. "Let's get this guy to the cops." 

Don's own voice rose. "And then what? You think they're gonna do anything to him for what he did to Mikey? That's bullshit and you know it." 

"Think about it, Donny. I bet he has a ton of drugs in his car, he's probably pulled that hit-and-rob thing before… and if it was him that attacked Mikey that night his fingerprints are already on that knife in police custody..." Raph pulled the gun out of his pocket and held it up for his brother to see. "And we've got this. What do you want to bet that this'll match up to one or two cases floating around out there?" 

Don walked a few steps away. "Fine." 

Raph lowered the weapon and sighed. It was usually Don that handled the logic of the situation and Raphael that sought out individual revenge. The turtle shook his head as he saw himself in Donatello's actions. _Is that what I'm like?_

Before his mind could offer up an answer, Raphael heard a rustling behind him. He began to turn, to find out what the human was doing, but as he twisted he felt something strike his injured leg. The turtle yelled and fell to the ground, grabbing his leg and grimacing from the pain. The gun rattled out of the ninja's grip and the human crawled to it - his fingers wrapped themselves around the handle and he brought it level with Raphael's head. 

Don saw the action before his brother even had a chance to look up. "Raph!" he screamed.

The warning was a brief one, but Raph understood what it meant. Ninja instinct took over and he ducked, punching the man in the face. The gun went off and Raph heard a cry of alarm behind him. One more punch and the stranger was unconscious, and the turtle struggled himself around to look at his brother. 

Donatello was by the wall, hunched over and clutching his arm, thick red fluid dripping from his fingers. Raphael pulled himself to his side and drew up to standing, resting one hand on the Don's arm and the other on the wall for support. 

"Are you okay?" 

"Son of a bitch..." Donny pressed his hand harder to his arm, blood welled up from between his fingers.

Raph looked behind his brother and saw that blood was soaking through the other side, as well, and ran down his sleeve in a slow stream. "Looks like the bullet went right through," Raph said. "Lucky he missed the bone." 

"If I was lucky," Donatello said between clenched teeth, "I wouldn't have gotten **shot**." 

Raphael pulled the belt off his coat and tied it around Don's arm, just above the wound. 

"Still… could'a been worse." He looked into Donny's face. "You could be bringing me home dead tonight."

"Was that a _thank you_?" Don smiled despite the pain. "You owe me two for tonight."

Raph grinned but said nothing.

Down the street they could hear three sets of feet sprinting in the darkness, then three familiar figures hurried near. Leonardo ran to his brothers while Splinter and April made their way to the stranger. 

"Your timing is a little off, guys," Raphael said. 

"What the hell happened?" Leo asked. "We heard a gun..." 

"Well, les'see..." Don said sarcastically. "Oh, yeah... I got shot." 

Leo drooped his shoulders. "I can see that. Now what happened?" 

Splinter and April joined the turtles and looked on silently, each expecting something to be said. 

"I didn't kill that jackass, did I?" Raph asked, motioning towards the human lying on the ground. 

"No," April said. "But I don't think he's going to feel too good when he wakes up." 

Raph cleared his throat. "It's complicated, but this guy..." he pointed at the man then looked at Don. 

"He hit Raph with his car," Donatello said, straightening up. 

"I think my leg might be broken," Raph continued.

Splinter kneeled and looked at his son's limb. "Perhaps. We will need to examine it." 

The sound of an approaching siren broke the relative silence and the group looked towards the noise as one.

"Shit," Don said, stepping away from the wall. "Let's take this below." 

Leonardo pried open a manhole cover and motioned that it seemed safe inside. April wrapped an arm around Raphael and helped him to their escape route and they slid inside, followed soon afterwards by the others. After all were safely underground the cover was replaced, and moments later the sirens arrived above them, then stopped and were replaced by the static of a police radio. 

Confident in their escape, they made their way back to the lair - Leonardo and April helping Raph along the trek as Splinter kept Don's arm braced at a safe position. They all remained quiet, neither Don nor Raphael saying anything more about the confrontation. Once home, they made their way into the lab, still unspeaking. 

"Let's see about this leg," Leonardo said to Raph, then looked over at Donatello's blood-stained arm. "Master, would you and April tend to Donny, please?" 

Raph struggled onto an examination bed and glanced across the room at Don. For many long moments the two brothers shared a gaze, then Raphael nodded.

"Wait," Don said, squeezing his wound and stepping forward. "Could I ask you guys to leave me and Raph for a minute?" 

"Can't this wait?" April asked. "You need to get patched up." 

"No," Raphael said, sitting straight. "I don't think it **can** wait." 

Everyone looked to Splinter, who acquiesced to the appeal. "Very well. But please, be swift." 

Leo, April, and Splinter marched out of the room, leaving the two estranged brothers to one another's company. Don didn't move for a few moments, then walked to the bed and hopped up beside Raphael. 

"I... I really don't know what's wrong with me lately," Don confessed without preamble, then suddenly ran out of words.

"I think that some of it must be me," Raph admitted. "I **know** that some of it is me." 

Donatello hung his head. "I've been on the warpath since... since Mikey..." 

"We all have." 

"No, not really. You've been..." he shrugged and bit down at the pain. "You've been so different. It's almost..." 

"Almost what?" Raphael pressed.

"It's almost like you stopped caring." 

Raphael put his hand on his brother's uninjured arm. "Hey, all those times you stayed calm when the rest of us were pissed off… you still cared, right?" 

"But that's me. You're different. You get mad and throw fits and go out bashing heads... acting like..." he let his voice trail off. 

"Like **you** lately?" 

Don scowled and looked up. "Yeah." 

Raph scratched the back of his head. "What you said up on the street - about not being able to do anything right lately..." 

"Yeah?" 

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" 

Don shook his head. "If I'd have just stopped dicking around and gotten that damn search done we'd have been able to do something before everything got out of hand. Before Mikey tried to **kill** himself..." 

"Well, if I'd have just looked a little harder," Raph said, letting out a breath, "maybe I would've found the drugs in the first place." 

They both went quiet as they considered one another's words. The superficial apologies from the previous month had done little to relieve the turtle's feelings of failure and anger, towards themselves or each other, but now it seemed as if they were finally breaking through. 

"So..." Don started, "Why **have** you been so calm lately?" 

"Somebody has to be. Why have **you** been so angry?" 

Don grinned. "Somebody has to be." 

"_Beware the fury of a patient man_," Raphael let out a quick laugh. He looked at the confused expression on the other turtle's face. "…John Dryden," he clarified.

"Since when do you quote John Dryden? Or anyone else, for that matter?" 

"Since I started reading Mikey's books." 

Don looked down. He had seen Raph reading a lot more lately, but it had never occurred to him to wonder what had been on the pages. It was nice to know that it was something that Mikey liked, as well.

"We gotta' tell the others what we found out. I mean, about what happened to Mike. About Marie and all that." 

Raphael nodded. "Did you want to tell them anything else?" 

"Like what?" 

"Like about the fight." 

Don squeezed his arm. "I'm willing to call it a sparring session if you are." 

Raph reached out and pulled his brother into a hug, squeezing him just a little too tightly around the shoulder. Don let out a little noise of surprise, then brought his good arm up and returned the embrace. 

------------------------------------

__

SPLIT DECISION

(Steve Winwood) 

Sometimes I think he knows too much 

His confidence never needs a crutch 

One man is a real one, the other wants to hide 

One man has his mind made up, the other can't decide 

By the time there's nothing left to choose 

One man puts the fire out, the other lights the fuse 

Sometimes I think I know too much 

'Bout what goes on in the real world and such 

Half of me is certain, the other isn't sure 

One half has the symptom, the other has the cure 

By the time there's nothing left to choose 

One half has the answer, the other looks for clues 

Sometimes I think we've come too far 

If we're lost and if not where we are 

Half of us is easy, the other half is hard 

Even though we do our best, we end up being scarred 

By the time there's nothin' left to choose 

One man puts the fire out, the other lights the fuse 

Sometimes I think I know too much 

When confidence never needs a crutch 

One man is a real one, the other wants to hide 

One man has his mind made up while the other can't decide 

By the time there's nothing left to choose 

One of us sees red, while the other sings the blues 

It's a fine line, a very fine line 

It's a fine line, a very fine line 

Split decision 


	27. TwentySeven

****

Colebrook Reservoir, CT

__

July 18  
2:10 AM

Oyuki woke in the darkness and knew that she was alone. She couldn't feel Mike's body pulled close behind her, couldn't hear his soothing breath in the silence of the tent. It wasn't the first time he had vanished in the middle of the night - it had become so common that she knew it was coming before they even settled in for the evening. 

The first few nights he had stayed by her side, holding back tears and pretending that nothing was wrong. But as time wore on he began to wander out after dusk - alone. He would tell her that he just needed to be outside for a while, that he just needed to feel the air around him. 

She knew it shouldn't be that way, not after all that he had been through. What he really needed was someone to hold, someone to talk to and just be near. That was what it was like in the sunlight, at least, on the sandy slopes and in the woods around the lake. There they would laugh and play games that they made the rules up for as they went along. There they were old friends again, becoming something more.

But after the sun set and the fire was put out Colebrook became another world, another reality. She loved the times when Mike would hold her close as they slept, but it pained her to think that those times were growing fewer as he revisited his recollections of the months before. Her own memories she tried to force away, ignoring them, believing that they would vanish if she denied their existence. So far they had only intensified as the little lump in her belly grew larger.

Oyuki opened the tent flap and looked out into the night. In the glow of the full-moon she could see that Mike was sitting on the bridge, as he did so frequently these days. He would swim out into the reservoir and climb to the top of the rusted beams, then he would stare up at the sky. 

The young lady stepped out of the tent and walked to the shore, looking out at the turtle as he sat contemplatively, lost within his own mind. 

"Mike?" Her voice seemed astonishingly loud in the quiet atmosphere.

He looked over at her and then back to the sky. "I thought you were asleep." 

"I was," she said, wading out. 

She took a breath and went under the cold water, swimming to the bridge. She surfaced with a gasp and climbed up the angled I-beams, then sat by Michaelangelo's side.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Thinking." 

"About what?" 

He shrugged. "Just thinking." 

The ripples from Oyuki's swim moved away from them, reflecting the moonlight and vanishing into the far-off dimness. As the last swell faded from view she leaned near to him and put her head on his shoulder. "I like it up here." 

He wrapped an arm around her and she shivered. "Are you cold?" 

She took hold of his draped hand. "Not anymore." 

The pair looked out at the mirror-calm of the reservoir, watching as water striders skimmed across the surface, leaving no trace of a wake behind them. A fish jumped in the distance, disrupting the pane of glass with small wrinkles that seemed to spread infinitely across the reservoir. It was so quiet, so peaceful... so unreal. 

Right then she realized that it didn't feel like those other nights that they had spent in this place - those other times when the darkness brought with it uncertainty. Maybe, she considered, it was because those other nights had been spent apart. She had never come out to the bridge with him on any other evening, had never stared out into the star-filled heavens while sitting by his side.

Michaelangelo rubbed his cheek to her wet hair and breathed in softly.

"You smell like…" he let his voice trail off.

"Like what?" She pressed, smiling slightly. "Water?"

"Like nature," he continued. "Like this place. It's so hard to believe. I mean, I know that people made this reservoir, but it still seems so real... like Central Park."

Oyuki nodded. The guys had taken her to the Park before. The urban oasis looked as if it had always been there, like the city had grown up around the trees and grass. But then they had explained to her that it was completely artificial, that men had built it on top of swampland and that all the ponds and watercourses were imitations - that the waterfalls could be turned off by valves underground. The trees and the flowers were never meant to be there, but were there just the same. Because people had wanted it that way a century ago.

And this place - Colebrook - was not so different. In their wanderings, Mike and Oyuki had discovered that there had once been a town there. Humans had claimed the land and had built houses and roads, culverts and this massive iron bridge. Then, when times had changed, the town was leveled. The dam was constructed and the area flooded. Nature was allowed to reclaim the land that men had annexed. But evidence of their presence still remained here - in the stone walls that snaked themselves along the waters edge, in the crumbling gray tar and concrete, and in the rubble of downed houses that still held pieces of broken china and rusted nails. Colebrook was real, natural… and at the same time artificial. It had been stolen from Nature, and nature had taken it back - or at least it looked that way.

The thought was more than a little ironic. It was also more than a little familiar. Especially, Oyuki knew, for Mike. He had been born normal, a little animal whose lifespan would have been directly determined by the control and handling of a human caretaker had humanity - or something akin to it - had been forced upon him. But what had changed him into the person that he now was - that life, that touch of humanity - had also nearly destroyed him. And now, at what seemed to be the edge of the world, he was reuniting himself with nature. With what he was meant to be - in another time, in another life. He had come, in a way, full circle. 

"You know..." Mike said softly, "...I could stay here forever…" 

She looked up at him, hearing in his inflections that he meant to say more. "_But.._?" 

"...But..." he sighed and wrapped his other arm around her, gazing into her face. "I think it's time we went home." 

"When?" she asked softly, unsure as to how she really felt about the thought of going back to a city filled with strangers.

He shrugged. "Tomorrow… the next day maybe." 

She rose and walked along the bridge, then stared into the infinitely dark woods beyond the water's edge. Why did he want to go back there now? He still had so much healing to do. They both did. "Why so soon?" 

"I've been thinking about it for a while," he told her. "I just think it's time to stop running."

"I don't know if I can…" 

"I love it here," Michaelangelo stood and stepped up behind the woman, wrapping his arms around her waist. "I love being alone with you, you know I do. But we have a life back there, a family. I could stay here with you forever, Oyuki, but…" 

She leaned her head back against his shoulder. "...But it's time to stop running away," she repeated what he had said. "You're right."

He squeezed her tighter. Oyuki didn't know how hard it had been for him to come to this decision, but she could tell that he felt guilty for making it for the two of them. Nevertheless, she had seen it in his face - an ache that was pushing him back home. He missed his brothers, and he hadn't seen April and Splinter in so long. 

He had told her that he didn't know how he would face the family again, but he knew he would have to. **They** would have to. When they left New York they had managed run away from the place, but not from the emotions. There were things that would be left undone until they returned to the lives they had abandoned in searching for their freedom from hard memories. 

Oyuki stepped away from Mike's touch and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I'm going to miss it here," she said. 

"We'll come back. I promise." 

She looked to him and then at the water just six feet below. She turned her face to the sky and jumped, splashing feet-first in the cool lake. She arrowed down and then let herself relax, floating easily to the surface. The moonlight shone down her face and she took another deep breath. The air here was so clean, so open. If they were to leave soon she would drink it up, so as to stay filled with the feeling long after they were back in the city. She heard a splash and small swells gently bobbed her up and down. She felt Mike touch her shoulder, then sensed the current as he swam around her body. 

He wrapped his arms around Oyuki and pulled her near, floating them upright, face-to-face in the cool evening water. She twined her arms around his neck and held on. She didn't want to let go, she didn't want to leave the shelter of his arms. 

They would return to New York. Then, maybe, she would be able to summon up the courage she needed - and she would finally be able to tell him about the child that she carried. 

__

-------------------------------------------------

Through The Long Night

(Billy Joel)

The cold hands  
The sad eyes  
The dark Irish silence  
It's so late  
But I'll wait  
Through the long night with you  
With you  
  
The warm tears  
The bad dreams  
The soft trembling shoulders  
The old fears  
But I'm here  
Through the long night with you  
With you  
  
Oh, what has it cost you  
I almost lost you  
A long, long time ago  
Oh, you should have told me  
But you had to bleed to know  
  
All your past sins  
Are since past  
You should be sleeping  
It's all right  
Sleep tight  
Through the long night with me  
With me  
  
No, I didn't start it  
You're broken hearted  
From a long, long time ago  
Oh, the way you hold me  
Is all that I need to know  
  
And it's so late  
But I'll wait  
Through the long night with you  
With you


	28. TwentyEight

****

New York

__

July 23  
9:18 PM

"Three ladies!" Raphael announced, proudly placing three queens face-up on the coffee table.

"Damn," Don scowled and lowered his own cards for his brother to see, then his expression lightened into a smirk. "All I have is a full house." 

Raph's mouth fell open. "You cheated!" 

"No, I played dirty," Don said, gathering pennies and nickels from the center of the game. 

"Will you two shut up?" Leo asked bluntly. He was trying to read the newspaper and his brothers' poker match had gotten loud. "Have a little respect for other people, will ya'?" 

"Well, we offered to let you play," Raph said. 

"Like making sure to invite the neighbors before a rowdy party?" Leo asked. "No thanks, I can live without a pity invitation." 

"Your loss," Don said, shuffling the cards. 

Leo looked over the top of his paper and allowed himself a grin. For a long time Don and Raph had been at one another's throats. Now, at least, it seemed as if they were putting forth an effort to get along. 

Don's arm was still up in a sling, supporting the bullet-wounded shoulder from over-extending. Likewise, Raph's leg was in a splint that held it motionless to give the cracked bone a chance to knit. Strangely, the two said little about what had happened the night they had received the wounds - and every time anyone mentioned the man with the gun, Don and Raph would give one another a sidelong glance then change the subject. 

Everyone's thoughts often returned to Mikey and Oyuki, though few words were spoken these days about when or if they would ever return. Nobody had much left to say, anyway, that hadn't already been said in some form over the course of the last three weeks. They had grown different in the absence of their brother, but now the differences were undoing themselves. For the most part, at least.

Raph continued to delve into Michaelangelo's library, discovering things that he had never been exposed to before thanks to his usual indifferent - and decidedly bibliophobic - attitude. He had also come to support Donatello a lot more these days, a dramatic reversal from the months past, when they had nearly come to the point where each would barely acknowledge the other's existence. Of course, there were still occasional spontaneous wrestling matches between the two, but now they were innocuous spats - though their injuries usually had to be re-wrapped as a result of them. 

Don's recent volatile attitude was being redirected back to his research as he took on more and more personal challenges. He seemed to be calming now, with more to fill his mind - he even began helping Splinter and April with the editing of the documentary. As a result, the progress on the project had quickened. It seemed that a goal was what he needed to get his mind back on its course.

Leo was the only one that practiced or went out on patrols anymore. Don and Raph's physical restrictions not withstanding, he felt the need to go out and search for something on his own. He just wished he knew what it was. 

"Hah!" Raph called out, slamming a straight flush down onto the wooden tabletop. "Got'cha!" 

Don shook his head. "This time. But I'm still out on top of this game, you'll go down." 

Without warning a knock came from the door. The trio looked up as one, thrust into a shocked silence. Nobody they knew had ever felt the need to knock before entering.

Leonardo stood and moved to the doorway, standing beside it with a defensive posture. "Who's there?" he called out. 

There was no answer and he turned the knob slowly, looking out into the sewer - a moment later he gasped and threw the door open full. Mike stood no more than a yard away, his head bowed humbly, the old leather jacket hanging loosely off him. Leo ran out and wrapped his arms around his brother, nearly knocking him to the sewer floor. 

"Jesus, Mikey! Where the hell have you been?" Leonardo said, trying to keep himself from yelling. 

Don jumped up, disrupting the pile of change at the center of the poker game, then reached a hand down and helped Raphael onto his own feet. The two stood beside the couch, leaning unsteadily on one another, sharing expressions of relief and disbelief.

Mike stumbled into the lair and sat on the arm of the couch. He looked over at them, then down at the concrete floor. "Hi, guys," he said, his voice so low that they could barely make out the words.

"Are you okay?" Don asked excitedly.

"Why did you take off like that?" Raph butted in. 

"Where's Oyuki? Is she okay?" Leo asked.

Their words came as an almost indecipherable jumble. 

"I dropped Oyuki off at her apartment," Mike said. He looked at the bandages that his brothers wore and his eyes widened a touch. "What happened to you guys?" 

"It's, uh... kinda' a long story," Raph said, sitting on the couch and propping his foot up on the coffee table. "And speaking of long stories..?" 

Mike shrugged. "I can't get into it right now." 

Leo took a deep breath and squeezed Mikey's shoulder. "God, it's good to have you back!" 

Michaelangelo looked around the living room - he seemed to be lost in this place that used to be so secure. Leo could tell that everything Mike laid his eyes on held unpleasant memories now - that what once was home was now a strange chamber wherein happy thoughts of days-gone-by mingled with bitter images of recent events. 

Leo could feel it, too, when he studied their home. Every glimpse into a shadowy corner left him seeing Mikey lying there on the floor, his life nearly ended by a needle in his neck. Every walk into the training room saw his brother storming out, angry at them, influenced by the poison he had forced into his own blood. Every step into the kitchen forced his eyes to the floor, where the blood dripped from Donatello's arm after the knife had sliced through his skin. 

But all the events that Leo revisited in his memory could not compare to the horror that Mike was still living with in his own mind. 

The group's excited words had now faded into silence, the four exchanging looks with one another, then turning their eyes away. There was so much to be told, but nobody was prepared to speak up. Until a voice, ancient and proud, came from the door at the far end of the room.

"Michaelangelo?"

Mike turned, looking into the face that had been his comfort for so many years. The turtle stood and walked slowly to his master's side, then fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around him.

"Sensei," Mike whispered. "I'm sorry…"


	29. TwentyNine

__

July 24  
11:32 AM

When Oyuki and April arrived at the lair, Raph, Don, and Leo greeted the long-missing girl with enthusiasm and smiles. Oyuki really couldn't tell much of what they said to her as she made her way inside, just that they were happy to have the two prodigal members of the family back and relatively well.

April had been a different matter. When Oyuki had showed up at the door last evening, raggedy and smelling of mud, the first words out of April's mouth had been _are you okay?_ That was soon followed by the inevitable _did you tell him?_ Oyuki answered the questions _yes _and _no_, neatly avoiding giving away any further details. After that April went maternal, yelling at the girl and scolding her for not calling or taking better care of herself. After a while the conversation slipped into the quiet scolding stage, with April standing on the other side of the room with her arms crossed and her eyes set firmly on the younger lady.

Oyuki had chosen that moment to excuse herself, wandering into the bathroom and taking a shower. She had almost forgotten what modern conveniences were like and it took her a while to adjust the water to a comfortable level. She did notice, however, that the hot showers she had been used to in the past were now terribly uncomfortable - and that she had turned the cold water up practically all the way, ignoring the left handle almost entirely. The result was an icy shower that felt just right, and the sensation sent a chill down her body, reminding her of the night swims that she and Mike had just left behind.

She and April had slept late into the morning, though Oyuki's sleep had been restless as she tossed and turned on a suddenly too-soft bed, in an uncomfortably warm room. Eventually she relented and opened a window, letting the night air in. Then she tossed her blanket on the floor and stretch out on it. After Oyuki settled down on the bedspread she stared out of the window, at the stars high above the building. But the stars were harder to see now than they had been in weeks. The heavens here fought a losing battle with the artificial lights of New York City. 

But she had to admit to herself, despite the fatigue and longing for a simpler place, it was nice to be back with her family. Their voices were unusually soothing, their words welcoming. She had never known that kind of homecoming before, and it made her heart skip to be given one now.

"I missed you guys," Oyuki said, sitting down on the couch. "I'm sorry if me and Mike scared you by taking off like that." 

"Scare **us**? Never!" Raph joked, hobbling over to the girl and leaning over to hug her. He lost his balance and nearly ended up in her lap. 

"Okay..." she looked at Leo and jabbed a thumb in Raph's direction. "What's with _Hopalong_ here?" 

Leonardo grinned and shrugged. "You know Raph. He was just out busting heads." 

"And breaking legs," Raphael said, smiling. 

Don pointed at his own injury. "And getting brothers shot." 

"Hey!" Raph protested. 

Oyuki heard the door to Mike's room open and turned towards it. A moment later Splinter came striding out and walked directly to the girl, giving her a hug. 

"Michaelangelo told me you are well," he said. 

She bit her lip and gave a fake smile. "Heh... better than ever." 

"I see," he said, tilting his head. 

She could tell that he was scolding her silently for not telling Mike the truth - as if she hadn't gotten enough of that from April. Oyuki looked over at the redhead, who was looking back at her with the same look that Splinter had. 

__

Damn, Oyuki thought, _I'm getting it from all angles. We should have stayed in Connecticut._

"How's Mike doing?" April asked Splinter. 

"Well… under the circumstances." 

Leo folded his hands in front of him and looked at the young Japanese girl. "Did he tell you? What happened to him while you were in Japan, I mean." 

Oyuki pursed her lips and let out a breath. Leo nodded, acknowledging her unspoken words. He put his hand on hers and let himself smile slightly. 

"He'd probably like to see you," Leo said softly.

Oyuki looked into the turtle's eyes, then smiled in return. Every eye in the room watched as she stood up from the couch and walked towards Mike's room.

---------

Michaelangelo rubbed his eyes and laid back on his bed. He had just spent an hour speaking with Splinter, telling him everything that had happened to him. Everything, that is, except for the details of the trip that he and Oyuki had taken to Connecticut - that he had left out, stating only that they had gone _somewhere up north_. 

Mike was sure that his brothers had already told Splinter and April everything that had happened, but somehow he needed to say it himself, to let his master know in his own words what he had done. Those confessions had been choppy, punctuated by pauses that lasted for minutes on end, until, at last, Mike felt able to go on. And Splinter had listened, letting his son release his demons and comforting him with his presence. 

Michaelangelo had tried to talk to Splinter hours ago, after he had first seen him standing there in the doorway. He had meant to talk to his father then, to make his confessions and ask for forgiveness. Instead, he just clung to him. It had been such a comfort just to hold his hand and cry on his shoulder - and Splinter hadn't pressed for answers. 

Eventually Mike had fallen asleep, before any words had been spoken. His sleep had been restless, his dreams vivid, but in the morning he woke to find Splinter still there, watching over him. Then Michaelangelo finally began to speak, to tell him everything. 

And now, an hour later, Mike was relieved to have said it all. After the tale, the look in Splinter's eyes had been one of support, caring. How Mikey had missed that over the months.

Now alone in his room, Mike reached under his bed and pulled out his notepad. He wondered if any of his brothers had read it; not that it mattered, his secrets these days were few. Somehow his deepest ones were those that were being pushed forward for all to see, and it seemed now that there was no mystery left of him. He opened the book to the page where he had left off writing, a simple bit of poetry that he had set to paper just before Splinter and the ladies had returned from Japan:

__

Have you seen me

Somewhere out there?

All I want

Is another day with me

I haven't seen myself in so long

I know I'm out there somewhere

Michaelangelo heard a knock on his door and he closed the notepad, sliding it back under his bed. "Come in!" he called out, his voice shaking. 

Oyuki entered and shut the door behind her, then walked to Mike's bed and sat down. They smiled at one another. 

"The guys give you a hard time?" she asked. 

"Not really. They were actually kinda' quiet about everything." 

"Not April," Oyuki said. "I've never gotten such an ass-chewing in all my life." 

He sighed. "It's weird being back, isn't it?" 

"It's not going to be like those nights in the tent," she said, fidgeting her hands. "The guys are going to think there's something going on with us. I mean, there is… but not what they might think. Right? I mean…" she gave up trying to vocalize her thoughts and tilted her head, waiting for Mike to sort out the words that she had so thoroughly botched.

"Why would they think that?" he scratched his head and shrugged. "But really, who cares what they think? We're not doing anything immoral. Right?" 

He was right, they had never done more than kiss. "True." 

Oyuki shoved Mike over to the other side of the mattress and laid down, putting her back to him. He draped his arm over her midsection and pulled her close, rubbing his face against her hair. Oyuki shifted his hand to the center of her chest, trying to keep his touch from her belly. 

Too soft. Her body started to arch in an odd, uncomfortable direction. She rolled to her stomach and Mike's hand slid to the small of her back. She still sank, her back bowing under the weight of Mike's hand. She wiggled and grunted.

Mike rose to his elbow and looked down at her. "What's wrong?" he asked. 

She turned her head to look at him and pressed her lips together in a half-smile. "Your mattress is too damn soft." 

He nodded, agreeing. "Guess we're gonna have to get used to it, though."

"I slept on the floor last night," Oyuki laughed a little.

He thought for a few seconds before jumping off the bed, then he grabbed her by the hand and hauled her to her feet. "Wait there!" he said, smiling. He pulled the blankets off the bed and tossed them onto the concrete floor, then sat down and motioned for her to join him. "How's that?" 

She smiled and sat then leaned into his arms. He kissed the top of her head and laid them both down together on the hard surface, where she again positioned herself on her stomach. It was more comfortable now - more of what she had become used to. 

"Perfect," she said. 

"Well, not _perfect_... we need some leaves, a few rocks here and there, some _country bugs_..." 

She leaned up and put her hand on his mouth. "I said _it's perfect_." 

He sighed and smiled. "You know what? You're right." 

__

Bent

(Matchbox 20)

If I fall along the way  
Pick me up and dust me off  
And if I get too tired to make it  
Be my breath so I can walk  
  
If I need some other love  
Give me more than I can stand  
And when my smile gets old and faded  
Wait around I'll smile again  
  
Shouldn't be so complicated  
Just hold me and then  
Just hold me again  
  
Can you help me I'm bent  
I'm so scared that I'll never  
Get put back together  
  
You're breaking me in  
And this is how we will end  
With you and me bent  
  
If I couldn't sleep could you sleep  
Could you paint me better off  
Could you sympathize with my needs  
I know you think I need a lot  
  
I started out clean but I'm jaded  
Just phoning it in  
Just breaking the skin  
  
Can you help me I'm bent  
I'm so scared that I'll never  
Get put back together  
  
You're breaking me in  
And this is how we will end  
With you and me bent  
  
Start bending me  
It's never enough  
I feel all your pieces  
  
Start bending me  
Keep bending me until I'm completely broken in  
  
Shouldn't be so complicated  
Just touch me and then  
Just touch me again  
  
Can you help me I'm bent  
I'm so scared that I'll never  
Get put back together  
  
You're breaking me in  
And this is how we will end  
With you and me bent  
  
Can you help me I'm bent  
I'm so scared that I'll never  
Get put back together  
  
You're breaking me in  
And this is how we will end  
With you and me bent

(Note: Thanks to Smego Baggins, who suggested the song Bent _by Matchbox 20 for this chapter!)_


	30. Thirty

__

Aug 1  
1:37 PM 

"It feels like we've been here all day..." Oyuki laid back on the exam bed and rubbed the center of her forehead. She hated hospitals, she hated doctors... she hated the open-backed gown they made her wear. "Can we please get out of here?" 

April looked at her watch. "It's almost over. Doctor Rey said that the first examination always takes the longest." 

Oyuki lifted her head and looked at the stirrups on the end of the bed. A little while ago her feet had been up in those stirrups while the doctor had given her the most embarrassing going-over that Oyuki had ever been through. After the age of ten, she had never even been to a doctor. "This place gives me the creeps." 

There was a knock at the door and it swung open. "Miss Mamisha?" a young male nurse said, stepping inside. 

"Well, what do you know," Oyuki said, sitting up. "They didn't forget about me, after all." 

The nurse smiled. "Sorry about that, we're a little backed up right now. Doctor Rey asked me to explain a few things to you." 

"Uh-huh... does this mean that I'm gonna' be here another three hours?" the young lady snapped. 

"No, it'll just take a few minutes," he handed her a large yellow envelope and a book. "Most of what you'll need to know is in here, I'm just going to go over a few details and then you can make your next appointment." 

Oyuki took the reading materials and scowled. "Can I get dressed first?" 

The nurse turned, walking for the door. "Of course. Just give me a holler when you're ready." 

The door closed behind the young man and Oyuki hopped off the bed. "Did I mention that I **really** want to get the hell out of here?" 

April took the book and looked at the cover. "_What To Expect When You're Expecting_," she read out loud then started flipping through the pages. "I've heard about this. It's supposed to cover a lot." 

Oyuki slipped out of the flimsy hospital gown and began getting dressed. "Yeah? Does it say anything in there about how to break the news to your boyfriend that you're pregnant with someone else's kid?" 

"_Boyfriend_, eh?" April grinned. "You two must have had an interesting three weeks." 

"Knock it off, Ape, I'm serious. How the hell am I gonna' explain this to Mikey?" 

"Have you ever tried telling the truth?" 

Oyuki pulled her shirt on over her head. "I can't figure out what to say. He's just been so quiet since we got back." 

"And he wasn't while you two were gone? You could have told him while you were out… wherever. Where did you two take off to, anyway?" 

"Never mind that," Oyuki said, sitting on the bed and putting on her socks. "And he **was** quiet there. Sort of." 

"How do you mean?" April asked. 

"Well... during the day he was fine. We had fun and stuff. Really. But at night... I dunno', he just sort of got really quiet." 

The redhead put her hand on Oyuki's shoulder. "He's been through a lot. I'm actually surprised he's come as far as he has. Just give him time." 

"But I don't **have** time," she patted her belly. "Think about it. I can barely breathe in these pants." 

"Then tell him now," April said. "Eventually he's going to find out, and I think it'd be a good idea if it was before you go into labor."

__

Aug 1  
6:12 PM

Leonardo walked through the lair's door, followed quietly by Mike and Don. Raphael looked up from his book and smirked. 

"How was the patrol?" he asked. 

Don shrugged. "Sewer's as smelly as ever." 

"Nothing happening out there," Leo said, sitting beside Raph. "Same old, same old."

Mike was standing by silently. He wondered how things could look so familiar yet feel so different He and Oyuki hadn't been back for even a full week yet, but already he wanted to leave. 

Raph stood up on his good leg and looked around the couch. "Hey, have any of you seen..." 

"This?" Don asked. 

Raph looked up at his brother, who stood holding the cane that Raph had borrowed from Splinter. 

"Thanks," Raphael said, holding out his hand. 

Don twirled the cane and waved it at Raph, smiling. "You want it?" 

Raph hobbled forward, smirking. "Donny..." 

"Yes?" he asked innocently. 

"That's mine." 

"Don't see your name on it." 

"Give me the cane, bro." 

"Aw, big tough Raphael can't walk without a stick, eh?" 

He hopped towards Donatello. "I'm gonna' kick your butt." 

"With one leg? Heh... that should be interesting." 

Raph cracked an evil grin. "Oohh... you asked for it!" 

The turtle tackled his brother, who managed to keep the cane out of his hands. Raph grabbed for the wood and his elbow struck the other turtle's shoulder. 

"The arm! The arm!" Don yelled.

Raph sat back. "Uh... sorry, man... I forgot." 

Don smiled and twirled the cane from one hand to the other. "As I was saying... the arm is feeling much better these days. **Woah!**" he fell back as his brother tackled him again. 

Raphael and Don rolled around the living room floor, wrestling playfully as their siblings looked on with amusement.

"Welcome back to the zoo," Leo said. 

April walked out of the kitchen, side-by-side with Splinter. 

"I thought I heard you guys come in," she said. 

"Hey! No biting!" Raph protested as the wrestling match went on.

"Bleah! You taste awful, anyway!" Don countered.

The human looked at the two that were bouncing off the furniture and raised her eyebrow. "At it again, eh?" 

"They do this a lot?" Mike asked. 

"Don't ask." She leaned towards Mike and said softly, "Oyuki is taking a nap in your room." 

Michaelangelo's eyes lit up and he grinned. "Yeah?" 

April nodded and the ninja side-stepped around his rumbling brothers. He opened the door to his bedroom and slid inside, closing the noise out behind him. Oyuki was lying on the bed, sleeping quiet, oblivious to the turtle's presence or the skirmish going on in the next room. He smiled and sat down on the bed, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. She rolled onto her side and he laid down behind her, pulling her close and sliding his hand under the pillow. 

Mike's hand stopped against what he realized was a book. He drew it out from under the pillow and read the cover and the shock made him jump to his feet. In the living room something crashed and Oyuki's eyes flew open, awakened by the sudden noise. She sat up and stretched, then looked up at Mike and started to smile. The smile faded, however, when she saw his stunned expression and the book in his hand. 

"What's this?" he asked, holding it out to her. 

She closed her eyes and hung her head. "Shit..." 

"Oyuki!" 

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up. 

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled. 

"Shit, Mikey! See for yourself!" she stood and grabbed the book out of his grasp. 

He walked to his bookshelf and looked back at her, glaring into her eyes. "When the hell were you gonna' say something?" 

"I wanted to tell you before, but then everything went to shit and..." 

"_Went to shit_? I was under the impression that we were doing pretty damn good. When did you decide that I didn't deserve to know?" 

"I never said that! I was going to tell you... I just… it didn't seem the right time. I mean, you had just been through…" 

"Oh... okay, I see!" he walked up to her and looked in her face angrily. "You were _going_ to tell me." 

"Calm down, Mike!"

He rubbed his left shoulder and sat down on the bed. "I thought we weren't going to hide anything." 

"Well, I'm not hiding it. Not anymore." 

He took a deep breath. "Who was it? That Hideki guy? Old habits die hard, eh?" 

A tear fell down Oyuki's cheek and she picked up the book, throwing it at him. "Son of a bitch!" 

He ducked out of the way and jumped to his feet. "Get out!" he yelled, pointing towards the door. 

She stared at him for a few seconds before turning through the bedroom door. She stormed out of the lair, running past April and the turtles who stood dumbfounded in the living room, then threw open the door and ran out into the sewers. Mike stepped slowly out of his room, looking at the confused faces, then he turned to April and rubbed his shoulder harder. 

"You knew, didn't you?" he asked, still angry. 

She furrowed her brow and turned on her heel, bounding after the girl. 

Splinter tilted his chin up, giving his son an admonishing glare. Mike ignored the look and spun back into his room, slamming the door behind him. 

"Shit!" he yelled, hitting his bookcase. He rested his head on the shelf and pushed his hand to his plastron. _Calm down,_ he said to himself, feeling a tightness in his chest. _Take a damn breath..._


	31. ThirtyOne

__

Aug 1  
9:20 PM

"Give him a chance," April said, looking at the girl across table. "It was probably just a shock." 

"A shock?" Oyuki snapped. "That son of a bitch..." 

"Calm down." April sat back and folded her arms. "Okay... I know I don't know the whole story... and I'm not going to ask you to tell me, but did you tell Mike?" 

She shook her head. "He didn't give me a chance." 

"Then maybe you should go back and talk to him. I mean, you still love him, right?" 

Oyuki put on an angry face. "I never said I loved him." 

April nodded. "Fine. You want to lie to yourself, go right ahead." 

"I am **not** lying to myself. I don't need him. I got by on my own before he came along and I'll get by just fine now. Who needs some fucking guy hovering around, anyway..?" 

"Watch your language," April said, sitting forward. "I'm sorry, okay? Look... I know he hurt you. But you have to consider that maybe you hurt him, too. Maybe if you had told him the truth from the beginning this wouldn't have happened." 

"I **know** you aren't saying this is all my fault." 

"No. I know it isn't. But one of you has to be the one to speak up about it." 

"And I gotta' be the sappy, emotional female and run crying back to his arms, is that it?" 

April stood and held up her hands. "Look, I tried talking to you, but I guess you don't want to listen right now. I'm going to go to my room and read, if you decide to calm down and actually talk this thing through, that's where I'll be." 

Oyuki tightened her jaw and watched as the other woman closed the bedroom door. 

"Fine," the girl said under her breath, then she stood up from the table, as well. She walked to her own room and slammed the door behind her, then sat down on her bed and punched her pillow, imagining that it was Michaelangelo. 

A tear coursed down her cheek and she rested her head on the same pillow. 

Aug 1  
11:47 PM

"Okay, breathe in... hold it," Donatello held a stethoscope to Mike's plastron and listened to the sound of his heart. "Okay, let it out." 

Michaelangelo exhaled for the fifth time and rolled his eyes, frustrated. "Am I gonna' survive?" he snapped.

"Your heart is still weak, it'll be that way for a while. You're gonna' have to ease back into your routine, take it slow for a while." Don sat back and set the stethoscope down, then grabbed Mike's wrist and examined the scar. "Start exercising, at least stretching..." 

"What about the chest pain?" 

"As far as I can tell it's similar to angina. Put simply, it's your heart not getting enough oxygen. It's usually brought on by overexertion or emotional stress - anything that makes the heart work extra hard." 

"Oh... great..." 

"I'm going to give you some nitroglycerine tablets. If you feel any pain coming on you should put one under your tongue. Then lie back, but don't lie flat, and make sure you call one of us as soon as you feel anything." 

"Nitroglycerine? Isn't that explosive?" 

"Don't worry, I don't think you'll blow your head off." 

"You're instilling me with a lot of confidence, you know..." 

Don smirked. "And see if you can get a little more distance to this flex," he said, pushing on Mike's wrist. "Your range of motion is way down, if you ever expect to use the chucks again you're gonna' have to start working on it." 

Mike yanked his hand away and rubbed his wrist. "Yeah, well... it still hurts." 

"It probably will for a while." Don said, then fell silent for a moment before going on. "So… what was up with you and Oyuki earlier?"

Mike scowled then turned away. 

Don shrugged. "None of my business." 

They both looked up at the sound of a throat being cleared in the doorway. Leonardo stood there, his arms crossed and his eye ridges drawn together. 

"Donny, could me and Mike have a minute alone?" he asked.

Donatello looked at Mike, who held a look that was teetering somewhere between irate and furious, then turned away, stepping out the door past Leo. "Sure," he said, soto voce. "Good luck."

After Don was out of the room, Leo walked to Michaelangelo and pulled himself up onto the exam bed beside him. "How are you doing?" 

Mike shrugged. "How would **you** be doing?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Oh..." Mike's eyes lowered. "I guess I wasn't the last to know, after all. Go figure..." 

Leonardo chewed on his lip. "You and Oyuki had quite a fight tonight. Wanna' talk about it?" 

"No." 

"You sure?" 

Mike nodded. "It's personal." 

Leonardo had assumed as much. "Well, if you do..." 

"I won't." 

Leonardo shook his head. "Jeez, Mike... can't you say more than two words?" 

"Can't you people let it rest?" Mike snapped. "How is it not clear that I don't want to talk about it? It's between me and Oyuki, it's a freaking personal matter, and she and I are no longer together. Does that about sum it up for you?" 

Leo stood, looking over at him. "Whatever the hell the problem is between you two, I suggest you fix it. I've seen you and Oyuki together and there isn't a damn thing that you care more about in this world. She's the best thing that ever happened to you, and you know it. And whether you like it or not, you're pretty damn important to her, too."

"Why the hell should I take advice about women from you. You've never…"

"You're right. I've **never**. And I probably never will. You have no idea how lucky you are, Mike. Don't go screwing it up." Leonardo stormed out of the room without another word.

Michaelangelo doubled his fists and jumped off the bed, making his way out of the infirmary. He didn't give his brothers a single glance as he bounded past them in the living room, and didn't care what they thought when he went into his room and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.

__

God damn it! he thought. _This is **not **all my fault. _

Mike started to pace around his room, watching his feet as they slapped against the floor. One of his steps passed over a dark streak and he stopped suddenly, staring at it, then walked to where his mirror once hung and gazed at the blank wall. Below it was a faint stain in the gray concrete, a faded handprint that had once been bright with his blood. Raphael had confessed to trying to clean the place as best he could, he'd scrubbed away at that print for hours, trying to get the blood out. In the end it seemed as if he had done a good job, and anyone who didn't know it was there wouldn't have seen it. But Mike knew where it was - just like he knew about the brown bloodstain under the throw rug. Just like he knew about the blood trail that led to his bookcase. 

He rubbed the crook of his elbow and frowned. _Maybe it'd be easier if I still had that needle, _he thought, sitting down on the floor. _I wonder what they did with it, anyway… _He hit his head against the wall. _Stupid fucking idiot. Maybe you should put goddamn gun to your head while you're at it. _

His thoughts shifted from needles and guns to the lady that had been in his room a few hours before. _Why didn't she tell me?_ He gritted his teeth._ She probably thought I was insane, telling her I loved her. If she gave a damn for me she'd have told me the truth from the beginning._

He made his way on hands and knees over to his bed and reached under the mattress, pulling out the book that he had shoved there earlier. On the cover there was a mother-to-be sitting in a rocking chair, caressing her burgeoning belly. 

__

Leo's wrong. I'm not important to her. That Hideki guy… he was important to her. This baby is important to her. I know where I stand.

He flung the book under the bed and crawled up on the mattress. Then he wiped away a tear and rested his head on his pillow.

__

FOOLISH PRIDE  
(Travis Tritt) 

She stayed up all night and cried into her pillow   
And fought back the urge to just break down and call   
Last night to find the fault seemed so darn easy   
But now who's to blame don't matter much at all 

She thinks if she calls him it just shows weakness   
So the hurt goes on with every tear she's cried   
Ain't it sad to see a good love fall to pieces   
Chalk another heartbreak up to foolish pride 

Turn out the lights the competition's over   
The stubborn souls are the losers here tonight   
And while the bridges burn   
Another hard, hard lesson's learned   
As in the ashes passion slowly dies   
And this romance goes down to foolish pride 

He relives every word they spoke in anger   
He walks the floor and punches out the wall   
To apologize to her would be so simple   
But instead he cries, "I'll be damned if I'll crawl" 

If he loses her he's lost his best friend   
And more than just a lover can provide   
So he wrestles with emotions that defeat him   
Chalk another love lost up to foolish pride 

Turn out the lights the competition's over   
The stubborn souls are the losers here tonight   
And while the bridges burn   
Another hard, hard lesson's learned   
As in the ashes passion slowly dies   
And this romance goes down to foolish pride


	32. ThirtyTwo

Still reeling from his conversation with Mike, Leonardo walked aimlessly around the living room, wringing his hands and occasionally cracking his knuckles. 

"Will you sit down for a minute?" Raphael grumbled. "What did he say to you, anyway?"

Leo spun around to look at the two turtles sitting on the couch. "Nothing."

Leo kept pacing and Raph and Leo kept watching. At long last, Donatello stood up from the couch and, without a word, walked to his room and shut the door. Leo stopped and looked at Raph, then changed his course for the door to the lair.

"Where you going?" Raphael asked.

"Out," Leo snapped. "I need some air."

Raphael watched Leonardo storm out, then grabbed his cane and stood, limping to Mike's room and raising his hand to knock. It took him a few moments before he actually managed to make the action. Then he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"Can I come in?" 

Mike looked up from staring at his wrist as Raphael walked in the door. "You just did." 

"Mmm... Yeah," Raph said, closing the door behind him and walking to the bed. He sat down beside his brother. "I ain't gonna ask you what's going on." 

"Good." 

Raph tapped the floor with his cane. "But I do know that you're mad at Oyuki." 

"You're a genius, you know that..?" Mike said with more than ample sarcasm. 

"And I know it's because of some kind of secret. And I know that April and Splinter were in on it." 

Mike growled. 

"Is that what's making you maddest?" Raphael went on.

"What?" 

"That she told them and not you." 

Mike stood and looked down at his brother. "I think if anyone should've been the first to know..." he let his voice trail off. "It just ain't right." 

"What ain't right? Maybe she didn't want to make you mad or upset you, maybe she was holding it back for the right time." 

"The right time should've been a long time ago," Mike nearly yelled.

Raph shook his head. "Or maybe she knew this was how you were gonna react. Give her the benefit of the doubt. From what I can tell you handled it pretty shitty when she finally did tell you, with all the yelling you two did..." 

Mike sat down again. "That's just it, she **didn't** tell me. I found it out myself." 

Raph looked at the floor. "Oh... Well, I don't know what to say, bro. But I'm sure she's out there banging her head against a wall just as hard as you are right now. You both overreacted…" 

Mike shot him an angry look. "I didn't overreact! Why are you guys acting like this is all my fault?" 

"I never said it was all your fault," Raphael said evenly.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Mike snapped. 

"Maybe you weren't in the wrong, maybe you were. In her eyes **she** was in the right. Nobody ever likes to admit that they've been the instigator of a war." 

"She was the one that…" Mike yelled, seeming not to care if there was anyone else home to hear them. He slammed his fist into his mattress. "She never should have went to Japan. I knew she should have stayed here. Then she wouldn't have bumped into Hideki. Huh… bumped… must have bumped into him pretty fucking hard to end up pregnant…"

Raphael's jaw fell open and he leaned forward. "She what?" he asked, shocked. 

"She…" Mike stopped ranting, realizing what he had just said. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. 

So that was it, the big secret. Raph shook his head. Of all the things he had thought could have set Mike off, that was one that had never entered his mind. Raphael sat in silence for a few minutes then shook his head. "So, what about her?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've got a clue for you, Mike… it's going to have a whole hell of a lot bigger effect on her life than it does on yours. You know, you don't really have the right get angry at her for what happened."

"I have **every** right…"

"It happened before you two were really together. It wasn't as if she went out and cheated on you."

Mike looked into his brother's eyes, then turned away. "It's just… it's not fair… her having a baby."

Raphael nodded. "Now I get it," he said softly. "It isn't fair to you… because she gets something you can never have."

Michaelangelo tapped his fingers together. "None of us can. I mean, me or you or Leo or Don. We're never going to be that lucky. We're gonna live a long time, but when we're gone we're gone. No more of us… ever."

Raphael couldn't deny that part of him agreed with Mike. The realization had come to him a long time ago that there was no future for the mutant turtle race. 

"Think about it this way," Raphael said, putting a hand on Mike's shoulder. "Maybe this baby will need a daddy."

"What difference does that make?" Mike asked, a tear sliding down his face. "It isn't my kid. It isn't like it would really be mine. We'd be too different… not flesh-and-blood."

"Neither is Splinter."

Michaelangelo glanced at his brother. "What do you mean?"

"We're not Splinter's flesh-and-blood. Does that make him any less our father?"

Mike sat silently for a while, then stared at his hands. "Do you really think that it'd work?"

"I think you love Oyuki," Raphael said. "That's a start."

Michaelangelo sniffed and turned aside. "I can't talk to her yet. I'm not ready." 

Raph squeezed his brother's shoulder. "Don't wait too long," he said. "Listen to the voice of experience… women are stronger-willed than us guys give them credit for. The longer you go without talking to her the harder it's going to be to convince her to forgive you for being an ass."

Mike grinned. "Experience, huh?"

Raphael nodded and stood, leaning on his cane. "That's what some people call their mistakes."

Raph walked out of the room, leaving Michaelangelo alone with his thoughts. And all of those thoughts were on Oyuki - and the baby. He reached under the bed and brought out the book, flipping through the pages. 

"She's having a baby," he whispered to himself, smiling slightly. "I hope it has her eyes."

--------------------------------

Oyuki opened her eyes. She had just been dreaming about Colebrook - about glass-smooth water reflecting the light of the full moon. In her mind she was back under the stars, her arms wrapped around Mike as he slept. She could still hear the crickets and Mike's breath, the only sounds in the night.

But another noise had woken her up, one that was fully out of place in the reservoir that her dreams had just brought her back to. This was the sound of a window opening in the room beyond.

A little frightened, the girl stumbled out of bed. She wrapped a blanket around her and dragged it behind as she stepped quietly into the living room. She stopped in the doorway and stood in the shadows, watching as the figure turned and shut the window quietly. Oyuki could see a shell in the faint light and immediately realized who it was.

__

Go home, Mikey, she thought. _I don't want to talk to you tonight._

The turtle instead turned and walked to the couch, sitting down and staring towards the kitchen. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch, seeming not to know what to do next. 

Oyuki watched him from the shadows. She bit her lip. She couldn't deny that she was still angry at him, that much hadn't changed in the past few hours. But that dream had brought her back to a place where Mike was unaware of the baby and was happy not knowing. She wondered why he couldn't be happy now.

But, then, Mike had come here for a reason. Maybe he wanted to talk now, maybe he was ready to let it be. Maybe he was ready to be happy for her now. Did it matter? She wanted to be happy about it, even if he couldn't accept that.

He buried his face in his palms and she stepped to his side. If he could hear her approach, he didn't show it. He looked so alone, so confused. Maybe she could bring back just a little bit of that happiness they had known. Maybe she could remind him of what they had been given the chance to share up there in the woods of New England. 

She kneeled by his side, then pulled his hands down and pressed her mouth to his. Their kiss was long and soft, but he seemed not to be a part of it. He pulled away gently, clearing his throat and standing.

"Mikey, I… I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was pregnant before," she said, her voice cracking. "It's just that…"

The turtle stared at her in the darkness. "Pregnant?" He whispered.

Oyuki took in a sudden breath. "Leo?"


	33. ThirtyThree

_A note from the author…_

_I realize it has been forever since I have written anything for this story, and for that I apologize. Since the beginning of the story, I have increased my own kid collection by one (in other words, I had a baby) and have lost several members of my family. One of those family members was lost to us as a result of a heart attack - something that I had written about earlier in this story, before it happened to someone I really loved. I think that after that happened I felt that it was wrong of me to write about those things. But I think that I have now come to realize that life does go on, and all we can do is learn from it, then keep on living._

_Max, Aunt Jeanne, Jimmy, Peggy… I love you. _

-

-

-

-

Oyuki reached over and turned on the light beside the couch. "Leo, what the hell are you doing here?"

"You're pregnant?" he asked again, dumfounded. "How..? When..? You and Mikey?" He looked as if he were about to faint.

"No! Not me and Mike! I mean… how? That wouldn't work… would it?"

"I don't know, I never tried…"

For many long moments, Oyuki and Leo stood in the middle of the living room, staring at each other, neither knowing what to say. Then, at long last, Leo spoke up.

"So, that's what he's so mad about?" he asked, not really needing the answer but just wishing to break the unbearable silence.

Oyuki nodded. "Wouldn't you be?"

Leo made a motion that wasn't quite a shrug. "Yeah, I guess so."

The young lady sat down on the couch, leaning her head back and resting her hand on her belly. "It was an old friend," she said, stumbling over the last word. "In Japan. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Leo sat down beside her and brushed the hair away from her face. "I don't know what to tell you," he managed to get out. "I mean, I'm happy for you, yes, but you don't seem to be." He leaned back. "And neither does Mike, for that matter."

Oyuki leaned over into the turtle's arms and let out a sigh. "I love him, Leo."

He smiled and patted the girl on the arm. "I know. He knows, too."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "You're taking it a lot better than he did."

"I guess I am, but…" he didn't finish saying that he could now understand why Mike had been so angry. He knew he would have felt the same if he had been in his place.

"I didn't want to tell him. Not after everything that happened to him. I wanted to wait until I knew he could handle it. I guess he couldn't. But I didn't get a chance to tell him, anyway."

Leo raised his eye ridges. "Oh," he said, realizing where this was leading. "He found out the hard way, huh?"

"You could say that," she said, her voice cracking. "The worst thing is, I was going to tell him. I mean, just then, I was going to tell him. But he found out before I could."

They sat on the couch for several long minutes, Oyuki's head resting on the turtle's shoulder. Her weight grew heavier and he listened as her breaths deepened. She had fallen asleep, softly and silently. Leo readjusted himself, resting her head against the crook of his elbow and guiding her small frame into his arms.

"No…" she mumbled. "It's ok… I can walk…"

"Shhh…" he smiled and lifted her up, carrying her into her bedroom. There, he laid her on her bed and covered her with a blanket. "It'll be okay, Oyuki," he whispered, kneeling beside the bed. "You know Mike, he'll come around." He brushed back her ebony hair once more, then patted her arm and began to stand.

Oyuki reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him back down. "Wait," she said tiredly. She pulled the blanket down and guided his touch to the lump of her belly.

Leo's eyes brightened and his lips turned up into a smile. "I've never…" he said sheepishly. "I mean, I've never been this close to a baby… I mean, a pregnant…" he stuttered.

She smiled back and touched his cheek. "Thank you, Leo."

He shook his head, still amazed at the feeling he had as he held his hand to Oyuki's growing child. "For what?"

When she didn't answer, he forced himself to look away from her belly, into her face. But her eyes were closed. She had fallen back to sleep. He re-covered her, then leaned over to kiss her forehead. "Don't worry," he said softly, "I'll talk to Mike."

He stood and walked from the room, stopping to look over his shoulder at the sleeping young woman. Then, from the corner of his eye, Leo saw movement. Not much, just a blur in the window. A dark figure, there, then gone. Leo made it to the window in two steps, then threw it open and stared out into the darkness. He watched the form as the dark figure jumped from ledge to ledge, then landed on the ground somewhat less than gracefully. Then he watched the familiar gait as the figure began to run.

"Mike…" Leo whispered, then looked over at Oyuki. If his brother had seen him and Oyuki, if he had mistaken the innocent gestures for something less than innocent…

Leo crawled out the window and shut it behind him.

--

Cont… eventually…


	34. ThirtyFour

Yes, finally… another update.

-------------------------

"Where's Mike?" Leonardo asked, running into to the lair.

Raphael jerked awake and looked over at Leo from where he lay on the couch. "What?" he mumbled, then shook his head. "I dunno. Why?"

"I need to talk to him."

Raph was suddenly much more awake. He sat up and rested his feet on the floor. "About what?" he asked through his teeth. "Is something wrong?"

Leo relaxed his posture and rubbed the back of his neck. "No," he said evenly. "I just need to talk to him. About something."

"I don't know where he is. I didn't see him." Raph said.

"He's in the training room," Donatello said, stepping through the door. "He was headed that way when I saw him, anyway."

"Did he say anything to you?" Leo asked.

"He didn't even look at me," Don rattled a bottle of pills at his brothers. "I was going to tell him that he left his nitroglycerine in the infirmary earlier, but it didn't seem like he wanted to talk."

Raph grimaced and shrunk back into the couch cushions. "Could you not bang that around?" he said, pointing at the bottle.

Don rolled his eyes. "I swear, if I have to listen to one more person claim that I'm trying to blow them up I'm gonna…" his voice trailed off and he walked into Mike's room with the pills.

Leonardo let out a breath and stepped around the couch. "I'm going to go, you know…" he looked over at Raph and threw his hands up slightly. "I have to go talk to Mikey for a few minutes."

Leo disappeared into the hallway and Raphael squeezed his eyes shut. A throbbing ache was beginning to work its way up between his eyes. He rubbed his forehead with one hand and tapped his fingers on the handle of his cane with the other. The last time Leo had tried to talk to Mike, just a few hours ago, it had ended in a fight. Mikey didn't need more confrontation right now, he needed a chance to talk things over with Oyuki.

Raph laid his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to relax away the ache. There was the noise of shuffling feet from the direction of Mike's room. Raphael glanced over at Don, who was now standing next the couch with his eye ridges drawn together, looking puzzled.

"Raph," Don said, tilting his head to the side. "I know Mike reads a lot, but… do you have any idea why he would have this on his bed stand?"

Don held out a book and Raph's eyes widened. He let out a humorless chuckle. "Not a clue," he lied, then bit down on his tongue to keep himself from saying anything else.

-

Leo watched from the door as Michaelangelo punched the training dummy over and over again. He couldn't have been at it for long, but he was sweating as if he had been there for hours. Leo stepped up beside him and got a good look at Mike's knuckles, which were bruising up and beginning to swell from hitting the wooden form. Leo cleared his throat.

"Mikey, can we talk?"

Mike stopped punching the dummy for a moment and looked over at Leo, then returned his attention to his exercise. "What about?" he asked between labored breaths.

Leonardo rubbed his chin. "About what happened at Oyuki's tonight."

Mike gave his brother a heated glare, then looked away again, not once stopping his pummeling on the dummy. "What did you do? Follow me?"

"What? No, I didn't follow…"

Mike struck the wood harder and Leo saw a streak of red where Mike had just broken the skin of his knuckle. He was going to hurt himself if he kept this up. Leo grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him from throwing another punch. The two frowned at each other for a moment, but there was little stress in their actions; Leo didn't tighten his grip, and Mike made no move to pull away.

"Then how did you know I went there?" Mike asked.

Leo let go gently. He sighed and walked to a training mat, motioning for his brother to join him there. Michaealngelo stood still for a moment, looking down at his bloodied knuckles, then stepped to the mat. Leo bowed, indicating that he wanted to spar. He had a feeling that this conversation would lead to Mike needing to let go of some anger and he didn't want his brother hurting himself anymore. At least if he hit Leo there would be some give, something the wooden practice dummy didn't provide.

Mike reluctantly returned the bow and the two of them got into positions. They began throwing warm-up hits, slowly at first, but picking up speed over the course of the next couple of minutes. Mike didn't have very good form, but his strikes were growing harder. Leo decided it was time to break the silence.

"I don't know what you saw at Oyuki's place," he said, aiming a punch for Mike's shoulder. "But we need to talk about it."

"Why?" Mike snapped, targeting Leo's head and missing widely.

"Because you don't know the whole story."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing happened!"

"I know nothing happened," Mike said.

Mike punched at Leo, missing, then spun into a kick, which barely skimmed the other turtle's shoulder. Leo ducked, then grabbed Mike by the back of the knee, pulling inward and sending him onto his shell. He jumped back up rather clumsily and grabbed Leo by the wrist, but Leo twisted and spun around, locking Mike's arm behind his back and slamming him face-first onto the mat.

"Then why didn't you go inside and say something to her?" Leo asked, pressing his elbow to the back of Mike's neck, forcing his cheek to the mat's soft surface. "She wants to talk about what happened between you two."

"You don't even know what happened, so just stay out of it, ok?"

"I know enough," Leo said, relaxing his hold. "I know that Oyuki needs you right now and you're too stubborn to even talk to her."

Mike stood and shook his arm, rubbing the shoulder that Leo had twisted. "Am I getting slow, or are you getting fast?"

"You're out of practice," Leo told him flatly. He watched as Mike's chest heaved with each breath. "You need a break?"

Michaelangelo folded his fingers into a fist, then turned his back to Leo. "You didn't tell me how you knew I was there tonight."

Leo crossed his arms. "I saw you," he admitted. "When you left the window."

"Where were you? Across the street? I thought you said you didn't follow me."

"I got there before you did."

Mike let out a shaky breath and shook his head. "I got to her window, but… I just turned around and left." He glanced over his shoulder for a moment. "I couldn't even look at her, Leo."

Leonardo's eyes widened. Mike hadn't seen him in Oyuki's room. He hadn't seen him touch her belly or kiss her. He didn't know that Oyuki had told him their secret. Leo swallowed hard, realizing that he had nearly said too much. Still, it seemed to Leo that he hadn't told Mike enough of what he needed to hear.

"I… I went in to talk to her," Leo confessed. "She thought I was you… at first."

Mike looked up slightly. "What did she say?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"She told me… thought she told you… that she was sorry she didn't say anything sooner."

Leo said as he stepped up behind Mike and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Mike grabbed him and spun, sending Leo tripping over the edge of the training mat. Leo righted himself easily, but felt Mike's fist contact with the back of his head. He bent back and flipped up into a kick, which sent Mikey flying into the wall.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Leo yelled. "Didn't you hear what just I said?"

Mike flipped awkwardly forward, then shot up onto his feet and tackled Leo, sending them both to the concrete floor. "So you know what's going on, then?" he snapped just before Leo threw him off.

Leo rolled to his side, watching Mike skitter into a weight bench. "I told you, she thought I was you! It was dark there, she couldn't see my face! Don't you dare be mad at her for saying something to me when you know damn well..."

Mike leapt at him again, slamming his shoulder into Leo's knees. Leo was ready, though, and bent back, leaned onto his shell, and twisted his legs around Mike.

"What else did she say?" Mike shouted.

Leo wrenched his brother around, forcing Mike onto his back and pinning his shoulders to the concrete floor with his knees. "That she loves you!" he said, gritting his teeth.

Mike raised his eye ridges. He didn't look angry or hurt; he looked surprised and almost happy. "She said that?"

"Yes."

They stayed there for a moment, still in a pinning position, while the thought seemed to work its way across Mike's face. He smiled.

Leo closed his eyes and sighed. This was working out better than he had hoped. He was about to get off of Mike when he felt himself being forcefully pulled to his feet. He glanced over at Raph, who had Leo's forearm tightly gripped in one hand and a cane held up threateningly in the other.

"What the hell are you doing to Mikey?" Raphael demanded, glancing down.

Leo suddenly realized that it might have looked like there was a bit too much force in his actions, and opened his mouth to explain, but Mikey spoke up, instead.

"Sparring," he said, standing up and flexing his shoulders. "I'm out of practice."

Raphael let go of Leo and lowered the cane. "Oh. Yeah, sorry. Uh... did you guys talk about whatever it was you needed to talk about?"

Mike nodded and stepped closer to Raph. "Yeah," He said, glancing at Leo out of the corner of his eye. "He knows about Oyuki."

Leo stared at the two of them. "He knows about Oyuki?" he pointed at Raph.

"Who knows what about Oyuki?" Donatello asked, walking up behind them.

For a few moments all were silent, then Mike looked down at the book Don was holding. "What are you doing with that?" he asked.

Don passed the copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting to Mike. "Oh, sorry," he said. "I was just… " he looked at each of his brothers in turn. Leo was rubbing his toe on the edge of the training mat and trying to avoid eye contact; Raph was attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to conceal a smirk; and Mike was flipping through the book with a distant look on his face.

"…About to put it back," Don continued, a nascent look of realization on his face. He turned to Mike and shrugged. "Um… congratulations?"

-

More later… 


	35. ThirtyFive

An hour later, the Turtles were sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and discussing the situation. The conversation had been going in circles since they left the training room, and it had just come around again to a familiar subject.

"I'm just saying that it's weird. I mean, how could Oyuki just accidentally let news like that slip?" Don asked, squinting his eyes. "What'd she do, walk up to you and say '_hey, Leo, I'm pregnant… oops_'?"

Mike and Raph gave each other a sidelong glance.

"It was dark," Leo shrugged. "She thought I was Mikey."

"Simple as that?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Leo said, then turned to Mike. "And I** really** got the impression that she was happy to see you there. Well... it was me, but you know what I mean."

Mike nodded silently.

"Whatever you say, Uncle Leo," Don sighed. "It still seems a little off to me, though."

The room was quiet for a few moments, then Mike stood up. "I'm tired," he said, walking out of the kitchen. "See you in the morning."

He stepped into his bedroom and slammed his door a little harder than he wanted to, then flopped down on his bed and rested his head on his pillow, squeezing an ache that had worked its way from his neck to his left bicep. He wasn't really tired; he had only told his brothers that so he would have an excuse to leave the kitchen. He appreciated what they were trying to do, but that one word that slipped out of Don's mouth had sent his mind reeling.

_Uncle,_ he thought. _Uncle Leo, Uncle Raph, Uncle Donny… Grandpa Splinter…_ Mike chuckled a little bit, then his slight smile fell as he looked down at his hands. _Where's that leave me? Uncle Mikey? Might as well be. The kid couldn't be anything like…_

"My son?"

Mike looked to where Splinter stood in the doorway. "Sensei," he said, standing. "I didn't know you were still awake."

"I could not help but overhear you and your brothers talking," Splinter said, stepping to the bed and sitting down. He motioned for Mike to join him. "So, the cat has been let out of the bag, then?"

Mike sat down and glanced into his father's eyes, then returned his stare to his own hands. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Splinter nodded slightly. "Has speaking with your brothers helped?"

"Not really."

"Perhaps **I **could be of some help."

"I doubt it."

"I see," Splinter raised a furry eyebrow. "Yes, it is a shame that I have never raised children that were not mine by birth, or I might be able to give you advice on the matter."

Mike lifted his head. "Why did you do it?" he asked. "Why didn't you just walk away when you had the chance? You didn't have to take us in and put your own life on hold for us."

"No, I did not have to be a father… I chose to be a father," Splinter looked deep into Mike's eyes. "Almost any man can create a child, but true fathers pass on their values, their wisdom, their knowledge, and their love to their children. They delight in experiencing every first -- the first breath, first smile, first step, first word; and they continue to delight in every breath, smile, step, and word that follows."

Mike felt a tear slip down his cheek and he reached up, brushing it away, then took hold of Splinter's hand and held it tight.

"It is not easy, but it is worth every moment," Splinter went on. "It is worth every missed hour of sleep, every sticky handprint on the wall, every scraped knee. It is even worth the pain of letting go and allowing your children to live their own lives. And when you leave this world, you are remembered; you live on in your children. As I will live on in you and your brothers; as you will live on in this child -- if you choose to stay with Oyuki. If you choose to be a father."

"I do want to stay with her," Mike said softly. "She needs someone that'll be there, you know? Someone that will take care of her and not toss her aside like... like her mother did. I mean, Oyuki's strong and smart, and I know there's nothing she can't handle all by herself, but she shouldn't have to handle it all by herself. And now she has this baby to think about and…" Mike stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. "I just don't want her to be alone. I don't want them to be alone. I want to make sure they're both safe -- her and the baby. But... I don't know if I can do it," he looked down at the scar on his wrist. "I can barely take care of myself."

"You have made mistakes, but you have learned from them," Splinter put a hand on his son's cheek. "As your brothers have learned from their mistakes; as I have learned from mine. I have faith in you, Michaelangelo."

Mike looked into Splinter's kind, dark eyes, then leaned forward, wrapping his arms around him and gripping his kimono tightly. "I love you."

"And I love you," Splinter returned the embrace. "And that is what truly makes us father and son."

Mike let go gently and laid back, rubbing his eyes. He was tired now, though he hadn't been before. It felt good to be tired, for some reason, and he smiled as his mind started to drift.

-

Leonardo was leaning against the wall outside of Mike's room when Splinter stepped out the door and shut it behind him. The rat stopped in mid-step and turned to face his son, and Leo quickly folded his arms across his plastron and looked down, as if he had been caught misbehaving.

"Can you not sleep, Leonardo?" Splinter asked.

Leo glanced into his eyes then turned away. "I was just wondering how Mikey was doing," he said. "He kind of left the kitchen in a hurry a little while ago."

"He is well," Splinter said, eyeing his son. "I believe he is on his way to sleep, however, if you were thinking of going in to speak with him."

"I wasn't, Master," Leo said. "I'm on my way to bed, myself, actually."

Splinter nodded. "Well, then… goodnight, Leonardo."

Leo unfolded his arms and gave his father a slight bow of the head. "Goodnight, Sensei."

The Turtle turned and walked to his room, glancing back at Splinter before going inside and shutting the door. He shook his head, angry at himself for listening in on the conversation that had been going on in Mike's room. It had been none of his business, and he hadn't meant to do it, but as he had walked by Mike's door on the way to his own bedroom, he heard Splinter's voice. It was a voice that he always wanted to listen to, no matter what was being said, and this instance had been no exception -- so he paused outside Mike's door for what he had intended to be just a moment.

But that moment had pulled him in, and he found himself listening for longer and longer as his father spoke about love and responsibility; then he listened more as his brother spoke about Oyuki needing to be taken care of. Leo had allowed himself to slip into a reverie as Mike's words circled his mind, and in his daydream he saw his brother and Oyuki together and happy, staring into the face of a tiny new baby and holding on to one another… taking care of one another. The thought had made Leo linger outside the doorway to Mike's room long enough to be caught eavesdropping by Splinter.

Now, alone in the darkness of his bedroom, Leo found himself thinking back to his own conversation with Mike--a conversation punctuated by thrown punches--and the look on Mike's face when Leo told him that Oyuki had said that she loved him. It was as if he had never heard those words before... as if she had never told him. Leo couldn't understand why she would keep her love a secret when it was so obviously real. It showed on her face when she heard Mike's name, it was in the blush of her cheeks when they were near one another... and, more than anything, it flowed through her kiss.

That kiss had been meant for his brother, but Leo felt Oyuki's tenderness and pressing desire for Mike pass through to him on her breath. _You have no idea how lucky you are,_ Leo remembered telling his brother not so many hours before, but he hadn't truly understood how lucky Mike was until then. Mike had someone to love--someone that loved him in return--and soon he would have the chance to raise a child, as well. None of the brothers had ever thought that could happen to them, but now it seemed that a miracle had occurred. Now it seemed that everything was going to work out for the best.

Leo let himself smile. After all the hell that Mike had been through, it looked like he was going to be the lucky one, after all.


	36. ThirtySix

* * *

_Please note -- this story will be going through a title change soon. It will be renamed "Far From Grace" -- I am making the change to avoid confusion, and the new title just happened to reach out and grab me from a song I heard. Anyway, on with the story..._

* * *

Oyuki opened her eyes and squinted past the blur of sleep, trying to focus on the alarm clock. _11:38_, she thought, pulling the blanket over her head._ I can sleep in for a little while._

_A little while_ ended a few minutes later, when April walked into the room and yanked the blanket away. "Wake up, sleepyhead," she said cheerfully.

"Unh… go 'way," Oyuki grumbled, rolling over.

"It's almost noon. Time to get up."

"What're you… my mother?"

"Nope, your boss," April said. "And you're late for work."

Oyuki opened one eye. "What?"

"We have editing to do." April grabbed Oyuki by the wrist and pulled her to her feet, then stepped behind her and gently pushed her out of the bedroom. "I'm surprised you're in such a grumpy mood after last night," she said, guiding her into a seat at the kitchen table.

"What about last night?" Oyuki asked, yawning.

"Nothing. It's just that... well, you and Mikey looked like you were getting over your fight pretty well," she chuckled, sitting down and taking a drink of coffee. "I'm sorry… I wasn't trying to be nosy or anything. I just heard the window open and when I looked out you two were…"

Oyuki stood up, knocking her chair over. "I'm going to go take a shower," she announced, wobbling a bit as a wave of vertigo hit her.

April leaned over and righted the chair. "At least have some breakfast first. You haven't eaten since…"

"I'm fine," Oyuki waved her off, then turned and walked out of the kitchen as quickly as she could, grabbing a towel out of the linen closet as she made her way to the bathroom. She shut and locked the door, then leaned against it, letting out a long breath and shaking her head.

_Lovely,_ she thought. _Now Ape thinks… oh, boy._

Oyuki threw the towel onto the toilet tank and turned on the shower, then slipped out of her clothes. Her stomach let out a slight growl and she grimaced. She was hungry, there was no doubt about that, but right now she didn't want food as much as she wanted to clear her mind. She stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain shut, letting the cool water run down over her skin and wondering how she had managed to get herself in such a mess.

_I should have just told Mikey the truth from the beginning,_ she scolded herself. _Now I have all this extra crap to deal with. And Leo... damn, that'd be just perfect if Mikey found out I kissed him._

She had to admit to herself, though, that it felt good having Leo know what was going on. At least he hadn't thrown a fit like Mike had. In fact, Leo did all those things that Oyuki had hoped that Mike would do when he found out about the baby. He held her in strong arms and talked to her calmly, then carried her to her bed when she started to fall to sleep. He didn't shy away when she placed his hand on her belly, then his soft voice soothed her as she drifted off. She felt his fingers touch her skin when he brushed her hair aside... his breath warmed her forehead as he pressed his lips to it.

Innocent gestures; brotherly concern. But the kiss... the kiss had been a mistake. Such a big mistake. Still when she kissed him, he kissed her back... almost as if he understood that she needed it at that moment. But why Leo? Why couldn't it have been Mike, instead? Leo had done all the things that she wanted… but she could only dream that he had been the person she wanted.

---

Leonardo stood outside April and Oyuki's apartment door and tugged at the belt of his duster, wringing out the rainwater that had soaked into it. The four hours that Leo slept had been more than enough for him, and he woke up to the sound of the others snoring in various spots around the lair at around nine o'clock. The noise was annoying enough to make him want to get out for a while, though he hadn't intended on ending up in front of this door, where the awkwardness of the past evening came rushing back into his memory.

_Well, I'm here,_ he thought. _I might as well see how the ladies are doing._ He lifted his hand and knocked.

Barely fifteen seconds passed before the latch was pulled and the door swung open.

"Leo, hi," April said, smiling. "C'mon in."

"Hey, April," Leo said. He stepped inside and pulled off his wet coat, tossing it onto the coffee table, then sat down on the couch. "How's it going?"

April shrugged and sat down beside him. "Fine, all things considered."

"Good." He began tapping his finger on the arm of the couch. "How's Oyuki?"

"She's alright. She's taking a shower right now."

Leo nodded. _Okay… now that I know how they're doing, I can leave,_ he thought to himself. He made no move to get up off the couch.

"So, where are the guys?" April asked

"Probably still sleeping," Leo said. "We had… well, we all had kind of a long night."

"I'm surprised Mikey didn't come with you," April smiled.

Leo looked up at her. "I think he's coming around," he said, smiling as he recalled the conversation he had overheard a few hours before.

"I'd say that's a given," April let out a little laugh. "I mean, if last night was any indication..."

Leo sat up straight. "What do you mean?"

She waved her hand at him. "Nothing, never mind," she said, her smile still wide. "It's none of my business."

Before Leo could open his mouth to speak again, a faint yell and a thud came from the bathroom. Leo and April looked at each other for a brief moment, then stood and ran together to the door.

"Oyuki?" April said, trying the doorknob and finding it locked. "Oyuki, are you okay?"

They waited for a response, but none came. Leo lifted a fist and pounded on the door. "Oyuki!" he yelled. "Can you hear me?"

There was still no answer, and April looked at the Turtle, who understood what she wanted with just a glance. He stepped back and pulled into a kick, hitting the wood just to the side of the knob, breaking the jamb and sending the door flying open. The two of them jostled past one another as they rushed into the bathroom, then they stopped suddenly, looking to where Oyuki lay on the bottom of the tub with the shower curtain pulled down on top of her. Leo gathered his senses and leaned under the running water, pulling the shower curtain away.

"Hey…" he said softly, shaking her a bit. "You okay?"

Oyuki opened her eyes slightly and made a little noise. Leo let out a sigh of relief and eased his arms under her, lifting her out the tub.

"Get her warmed up," April said, turning off the shower. She grabbed the towel off the toilet tank and draped it over the young girl's bare skin. "Let me go get her some clothes, then I'll drive her to the hospital."

Leo carried Oyuki into the living room, laying her down on the couch. He sat on the edge of the cushions and brushed the wet hair away from her face, then pulled the towel up over her shoulders. She took a few long breaths, peeking through half-open eyes, then gasped a bit and sat up, dropping the towel to the floor and throwing her arms around Leo's neck.

"Mikey…"

Leo tentatively returned the embrace. "Wrong again," he said, trying to smile.

"I got dizzy," she did not loosen her hold on him. "I slipped."

"Shh… you're okay."

She began to shiver and Leo leaned over to pick up the towel, but Oyuki would not let him go.

"No, don't," she said.

"You're chilly," he let out a nervous breath. "You're naked."

"I don't care..."

Leo cautiously held Oyuki closer, rubbing his hands up and down her back, trying to warm her. Her shivering subsided and she relaxed in his arms, then looked up into his eyes and smiled.

"Better?" he asked softly.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, but didn't speak.

"This is all I could find in that messy..." April said, walking into the room with some wrinkly sweatpants and a t-shirt in her hands. She stopped suddenly and her mouth fell open. "Uh, Leo… I think I can handle it from here."

Leo felt himself blushing and let go of Oyuki. She didn't release her own hold, so he reached up, gently taking her hands and pulling them down, then smiled warmly at her before standing and walking to the other side of the room. He folded his arms and stared at the rain outside the window, waiting for the women to finish, but before long he found himself unintentionally glancing over towards the couch. Oyuki was pale and wobbly, yet was struggling against April as she tried to help her put on the shirt. She looked back at Leo, giving him half a grin as she put her arms into her sleeves. He held her gaze for a moment before spinning back around to watch the rain pouring down outside.

_Mikey should be here, not me,_ he thought, stepping closer to the pane.

"Okay, Leo," April spoke up. "You can look now."

Leonardo made his way back to the couch and stood beside it as Oyuki tied her shoes.

"I'm fine, Ape," she said. "Really. I just got dizzy and slipped, that's all."

"Doesn't matter, you're still going in."

"What, you've never gotten dizzy before?"

"That's beside the point. I'm not…" she stopped and looked at Leo as if she had just realized she was about to say something she shouldn't. She returned her attentions to Oyuki. "You're going to the hospital."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Leo couldn't help but find it funny that April was trying so hard not to tell him a secret that he already knew.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Oyuki said. "I want to stay here."

Leo reached down and took her by the hand, pulling her to her feet. "You should go," he said, leading her to the door. "I'm sure it won't take long."

"It'll take forever," she grumbled. "I hate hospitals."

April grabbed her car keys and an umbrella. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back," she said, opening the door.

Leo held on to Oyuki's hand for a moment longer, then gave her a brotherly smile and let go. The women made their way down the hallway and he shut the door.

_She's going to be okay,_ he told himself, walking back to the couch. He picked up the damp towel and folded it, then set it down on the coffee table. _I just hope Mikey will be when he finds out._


	37. ThirtySeven

* * *

Don yawned noisily and walked into the kitchen. A quick glance around the room told him that Raphael was the only other person in there, but, at the moment, Don was too tired to care. After the initial shock of finding out about Oyuki--and the three cups of coffee that accompanied the subsequent burst of conversation on the matter--he had found it impossible to get any sleep for several hours. That hadn't been such a bad thing, it turned out, since it had given him the opportunity to do a little more research into something that had been troubling him since Mike had gotten back from wherever he and Oyuki had run off to. Still, now Don wished he had waited to do the search until morning -- at least he wouldn't have gotten a backache from sleeping hunched over in his computer chair. 

"Mornin'," Raph said between bites of cereal.

Don sat down, resting his head on the kitchen table."It's still morning?"

Raph looked up at the clock. "No, not really." He glanced at Don. "You fall asleep at the computer again?"

"How'd you guess?"

"You have keyboard prints on your face."

Don grunted and propped himself up on his elbows. "I really, _really_ wish we could have a normal life around here."

"Good luck with that," Raph said.

Mike stumbled into the kitchen and walked to the sideboard, giving his brothers the barest of glances as he went past. He poured himself a cup of coffee, then drew in a quick breath. His arm jerked to the side, spilling some of the drink onto the sleeve of his leather jacket, and he hastily set the cup down and grabbed the edge of the sink. Mike stood with his back to the table for a minute, then brought a fist up and slammed it down on the sideboard.

He picked up his cup with a shaky hand and turned around, putting on forced smile. "Hey," he greeted his brothers tersely.

Don eyed him. "You should cut down on the caffeine."

Mike sat down at the table and took a drink. "Why?"

"It's not good for your heart."

"You weren't worried last night."

"Yeah, but we all kind of needed it last night, too," Don said. "Regardless, it'd be best if you only have one cup right now."

"I'll be fine," Mike said, taking another sip. "Where's Leo?"

"Still in bed, probably," Raph said, finishing his cereal and pushing the bowl away.

"Nope," Mike said. "I went by his room. He wasn't there."

Almost in response, the front door to the lair squeaked open.

"Speak of the devil," Raph said, grinning as Leo stepped into the kitchen. "Where'd you take off to?"

Leonardo removed his coat and tossed it on the back of a chair, then sat down. "I stopped by to see how the ladies are doing."

"And?" Mike pressed, staring at him over the edge of his coffee cup.

Leo absentmindedly rubbed his hands together. "They're fine," he said, then paused for a moment before nonchalantly clearing his throat and going on. "Oyuki got a little dizzy, so April is taking her to the hospital to have her checked out, but other than that…"

Mike set his cup down and drew his eye ridges together. "Just because she was a little dizzy?"

"Yeah… pretty much."

Mike shook his head vigorously. "No, I've been reading that book… dizzy is normal. You don't go to the hospital for dizzy."

Leo sighed. "She slipped in the bathtub."

"Is she okay?" Mike asked quickly.

"She's fine."

"You're sure? She didn't land funny or anything, did she?"

"_Land funny_?" Raphael asked.

"You know, if she landed the wrong way she could…" he looked at each of his brothers in turn, then gripped the side of the table tightly. "No, you're right. I'm sure she's fine. I'm just…" he started to bring his hand to his chest, but lowered it and grabbed his coffee cup, instead. "I'm just being stupid." Mike took a last drink and stood up, walking to the sideboard and putting his cup into the sink. He turned back around towards the table and flexed his hand into a fist, holding it a couple inches away from his plastron. He looked at his brothers again and straightened out his fingers, but his hand was shaking. "I was thinking that… well, I was going to go over there in a while, but I guess I should wait to be sure they're home, huh?"

Don stood and grabbed a bottle of aspirin off the top of the refrigerator. "Here," he said, holding it out to Mike. "Take one."

"Why?"

"For the pain."

"I'm not in any pain," Mikey said unconvincingly.

Don didn't lower his hand. "Then to stop the pain before it starts."

Mike stared at him for a moment, then took the bottle and shoved it into his jacket pocket. "I'll hang on to 'em."

Don nodded and turned to the others. "Sorry to leave the party so soon, guys, but I have work to do," he said, walking towards the living room.

"Hey, hang on a second, Donny," Leo said, standing up. He joined his brother at the door. "I've been meaning to talk to you about…" he paused and looked back at Mike. "About the thing that you installed on the other thing."

Don shrugged and the two of them stepped out of the kitchen. "What thing?" he asked.

Leo came to a halt and grabbed Don by the arm. "Did you see the way Mikey was holding back in there?"

"That's why I gave him the aspirin," Don said, heading for his room once again.

"What?" Leo followed him. "What the hell good is aspirin going to do?"

"It helps."

"Helps what? That's like…" he glanced at the scar on Don's arm. "Like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole."

"It thins the blood and keeps platelets from sticking to the walls of blood vessels," Don said, sitting down at his computer. His fingers started flying across the keyboard. "I'm not a doctor, Leo. All I know is what I've read. And everything says it helps. Some of what I looked up even says aspirin may be better than nitroglycerine for angina."

"Really?" Leo's eyes widened in surprise, then he shook his head. "Wait a minute. What's angina?"

"Basically, it means his heart isn't getting enough oxygen."

"And you're sure that's what Mikey has?" Leo asked.

Don nodded. "I'm just judging by the symptoms we can see. It's not like we have an EKG machine sitting around down here so we can get a good look at what's going on in that chest of his." He looked up at Leo, then back at the screen. "Maybe I should have said something before, but I've been worried about him since he got home." Don motioned towards the monitor and began to read out loud. "_Angina can often be described as stable or unstable. Stable angina recurs in a regular or characteristic pattern, and the level of activity or stress causing the angina is somewhat predictable. Unstable angina is chest pain that occurs at rest or with less and less exertion; the pain may become more frequent and severe and last longer_." Don took a deep breath. "_Unstable angina is a warning sign that blood flow to the heart has become more impaired. Complications of unstable angina include progression to an acute myocardial infarction_."

"A what?"

Don looked over his shoulder at his brother and frowned. "A heart attack."

Leo felt himself jump. "Damn it… hasn't he been through enough already?"

"So far the pain has done what angina does -- it's come and gone," Don went on, facing the computer again. "The problem is that he keeps on acting like it isn't bothering him, but one of these times it might not just be angina… and by the time he figures that out, it could be too late."

Leo gripped the back of Don's chair tightly. "Does aspirin help... I mean, if it **was** a heart attack, would it do anything?"

"It works within fifteen minutes to keep blood clots from forming," Don nodded. "It's not a miracle drug, but it could save his life if he takes it soon enough."

Leo pursed his lips. "You should tell Mikey. He's the one that needs to know all this."

"Yeah, well... have you tried talking to Mike lately?"

"Yes."

Don rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah... I forgot."

Leo patted him on the shoulder, then turned and walked towards the door. "I'll let you get back to work now."

"What work?"

Leo looked at him. "The work you left the kitchen to do."

"Oh," Don said, smirking. "Actually, I was just going to take a nap. I'm beat."

Leo grinned and walked out, shutting the door behind him, then made his way through the living room, bound for his own bedroom.

"Did you get the thing installed on the other thing all straightened out?" Mike's voice came from the couch.

Leo stopped and looked over at him. "Yeah… all fixed."

"That's good." Mike lifted a shaky hand and wiped beads of sweat off his forehead.

Leo stepped closer to his brother. "It's pretty hot in here," he said. "You think that maybe it'd be best for you to take off the jacket?"

"I'm fine."

Leo nodded. "Did you take the aspirin yet?"

"Nope."

"You should."

"Why?"

Leo sighed. "Maybe you should talk with Donny," he said. "I think he can explain it better than me." He continued towards his room.

"What were you really doing over to Oyuki's place?"

Leo turned around and looked at Mike again. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't really go over just to see how they were doing, did you?" Mike looked over his shoulder at Leo. "Did you go to talk about me again?"

"I just wanted to check on them."

"Oyuki mostly, right?"

Leo sighed. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about her," he said. "I know you are, too, but…"

"But I'm too damn stubborn to get off my ass and go talk to her like I should have done hours ago," Mike said, linking and unlinking his fingers nervously. "I'm just... scared as hell to try."

Leo walked back to the couch. "I'll go over there with you later, if you want," he said. "We all will."

"That might be a good idea," Mike bit his lip and looked up at his brother. "Sorry about the sparring session last night. I guess I kind of lost my cool," he grinned slightly. "But I did enjoy punching you in the head."

"Yeah," Leo said, chuckling. "I enjoyed knocking you on your ass."

"I deserved it."

"So did I, I guess."

Mike squinted at him. "You guess?"

The two laughed. Leo loved his brother's laugh. It had been so long since he had heard it that he had nearly forgotten just how much it meant to him, how bright it made the world seem.

Mike stopped laughing and rotated his left shoulder. "Damn it..."

Leo's own smile vanished suddenly. "Is your arm alright?"

"You twisted it pretty good last night."

"I twisted your right arm."

"Whatever."

_The problem is that he keeps on acting like it isn't bothering him..._ Don's words echoed in Leo's mind, _...but one of these times it might not just be angina… and by the time he figures that out, it could be too late_. Leo shook his head and patted his brother on the knee. "Well, go talk to Donny when you get the chance," he said, trying to make it sound like casual conversaition. "And why don't you go ahead and take one of those aspirin for that arm."

Mike shrugged. "In a while."

Leonardo stood and turned away. _Before it's too late._

* * *


	38. ThirtyEight

* * *

- 

_"…Well, it looks like the cats and dogs have decided to give us a break, but I wouldn't put away the umbrella just yet…"_

The weatherman's too-cheerful voice was cut off by the ringing of the phone on the coffee table. Raphael reached out quickly, picking up the receiver before it was halfway through its second ring.

"Hello?" he said. "Oh, hi, April… Yeah, Leo told us. How's she doing?" Raph cracked a smile and gave his brothers a thumbs-up signal. "Great… Yeah… That's fine. Hey, if you don't mind, me and the guys thought we'd drop by later tonight… Okay, see you in a while." He hung up the phone and sat back on the couch. "Oyuki's fine," he said to the group around him. "I guess April still doesn't know that **we** know what's going on. She didn't say anything about it, anyway."

"That's going to be an awkward conversation," Don said. "I volunteer Leo to do the talking."

"Gee, thanks," Leonardo said. "So, when are we going over?"

They all looked at Mike, who shrugged. "In a little while. I have a couple things I need to take care of first," he said, then stood silently and walked to his bedroom.

They all watched him go, then Raphael rose to his feet, as well.

Don cleared his throat. "You going to talk to Mikey?"

"I forgot to return something I borrowed from him," Raph said, leaning on his cane.

"Could you tell him to come and see me in a little while? I need to go over a few things with him."

"Sure," Raph looked closer at the concerned expression on Donatello's face. "You okay?"

Don glanced over at Leo, then back at Raph. "I'm fine," he said, pretending to smirk. "I just wanted to talk to him and I didn't really want to bug him if he's busy. So, if you could just let him know that whenever he gets the chance…"

Raph nodded. "Yeah. No problem," he said, then turned and made his way to his own bedroom. He hobbled to his nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out an old, tattered book. He opened the cover, flipping through the pages until he came to a dog-eared page towards the middle. _Good a time as any to give this back_, he thought, smiling.

-

Mike heard a knock and lifted his head. "Yeah?"

Raph pushed the door open and made his way to the bed, helping himself to a seat beside his brother and resting his cane against the bed stand. "You still not ready to talk to her?" he asked as Mike leafed through Oyuki's book.

"I'm ready," Mike said. "I'm just not_ ready_ ready."

"Geez, you're as stubborn as I am."

Mike smirked. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"Either. Both, maybe," Raphael looked down at the book in his own hand, then set it on Mike's lap. "This is yours."

Mike put down _What To Expect When You're Expecting_ and picked up the old hardcover. "Wow," he said flatly. "You actually remembered to return something. I'm impressed."

"Yeah, sorry it took so long to get it back to you, but I was kinda' enjoying it," he tapped his foot and let out a breath. "I especially liked this one thing in there by this Japanese guy… and I can't say his name right, but…"

"Tsuboi Shigeji," Mike said, looking down at the stained cover.

"Yeah, that's him," Raph said. "Anyway, I noticed you marked it... so I'm guessing you like that one, too."

Mike shrugged. "I think I used to," he said. "Don't know why, though."

Raph took the book out of his brother's hand and flipped it open again. "Well, I know why I like it," he said. "It's something about listening to stuff you can't really hear. Just because you don't say everything, it doesn't mean that you aren't saying anything."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Mike said.

"That's okay, neither do I," Raph chuckled, closing the cover and handing the book back to him.

"Thanks for returning it, anyway."

"Thanks for letting me borrow it. It came in handy." Raphael stood up, grabbing his cane. He hobbled to the door, then stopped and turned around. "Oh, almost forgot," he said, waving a finger at Mike. "Donny wants to see you when you get the chance."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fine."

Raph grinned, then walked out the door, pulling it shut behind him.

Mike stared down at the book in his hands, then opened it. He didn't need the fold to remind him where the poem was; he knew just by the way the pages felt as he flipped through them. He knew just where to stop, because he had stopped there so many times already. He ran his fingers down the page, staring at each word. It was such a short poem, yet it had taken him so long to read it the first time, back when his blindness was fading and the blurry shadows were melting away. He closed his eyes and remembered the darkness... remembered the light beginning to break through.

…

_Nobody understood how hard that was for him, to be unable to look at the words. He'd always loved reading, but even he didn't realize how much until he couldn't do it anymore. But it was so close... he could touch the books, he could flip through the pages, he could run his fingers down them and feel the indentations the printing press had left behind. He was so close to this thing he loved so much... it was so unfair, so wrong._

_But not anymore. He wouldn't let himself be held back from something that meant so much to him. Already he could see shapes, light and dark, hues. Reading could not be so far behind. He was going to see clearly soon; he was going to read again, and he was determined that this was the day he was going to do it._

_He felt the books on the case and grabbed one, pulling it out… it felt old and smelled like must. He didn't know what book this was, but it didn't matter. He carried it to his bed and sat down, then opened the cover. He flipped through it, landing on a page somewhere towards the middle._

_Then he stared at it. He squinted and strained his eyes, trying to see the words clearly. At first, there was only a wash of white; then, slowly, blocks of gray began to appear. The blocks divided themselves into strips, and the strips darkened into black lines. Spaces of white appeared, shattering the lines into fragments. The fragments became letters and, for the first time in far too long, Mike was able to read:_

_I… I may… be…_

…

But now, so long after returning to the light, Mike didn't need to read the words; he knew them by heart. He closed his eyes and spoke them softly to himself.

_"I may be silent, but  
I'm thinking  
I may not talk, but  
Do not mistake me for a wall."_

Silence... quiet peace amid harsh reality. Like the reservoir. It had once been a town, but men had flooded it. They made a dam, giving the water place to gather while it waited to be used by even more men. There were highways on all sides of the lake, just beyond the woods, atop the cliffs, over the hills; but the only road that could actually be seen was the washed-out gray one that was crumbling back into nature. Once in a while sunlight would reflect off a far away passing truck, but it would be gone in an instant. Then all that could be seen was the gray road, the woods, the water, and the old, rusty bridge that had left its usefulness far behind.

It had been nice out there, without distraction, without interruption... without brothers constantly keeping tabs on him to make sure he wasn't going to do something stupid. The only people they had seen at Colebrook were fishermen standing on the far shore or trolling by in their little aluminum boats, but they had been few and far between. The people would wave at them sometimes, not knowing that the two far away strangers were exiles of their own making--and that one of them wasn't even human--then they would move along and he and Oyuki would be alone again. Just the two of them.

_The **three** of us,_ he told himself, looking over at Oyuki's book. _I wish she would've told me about the baby sooner, I wouldn't have kept her out there as long as I did. I would have taken better care of her..._

But now she was too far away from him. He could almost touch her in his mind... but she wasn't near enough. Why had it been so easy to convince himself to read again, but so hard to convince himself to go to Oyuki and tell her that he was sorry? He loved reading, but he loved her more. He loved her so much...

A sudden spasm in Mike's arm sent the book tumbling to the floor. It felt as if someone had jumped on his shoulder and was still there, pressing down. He rubbed his arm, trying to chase away the heaviness that had settled there, but the pressure intensified and began coiling itself around his bicep.

"Damn it," he said, standing. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of aspirin that Don had given him earlier that day. _No, it doesn't hurt that bad,_ he thought, returning the bottle to his pocket. _It's just a little cramp, that's all. It'll go away._

Trying to ignore the sensation, Mike picked the book up off the floor and carried it to the bookshelf, sliding it into an empty spot. He let his eyes work their way over the titles on the spines of his collection and shook his head. Raph was the one that put the books back into place, but he had done it all wrong. _I'll have to reorganize this some time, he thought. Stephen King doesn't belong next to Emily Dickinson, and they sure as hell shouldn't be on the same shelf as my graphic novels._

He turned back around towards his bed and stretched out his arm, noticing that the pressure in it was subsiding slightly, then his eyes fell to where a touch of blue peeked out from between his mattress and box spring. Mike made his way over and pulled out his old notepad. He sat down and opened the cover, going through the pages one-by-one, but on the seventh turn, he stopped, then flipped the rest of the pages at once. Mike smiled and reached over, picking up Oyuki's book.

-

Oyuki poked at her taco and sneered. "Do I have to eat this?"

"You have to eat something," April told her, taking a bite of her own taco. "Doctor's orders."

"I'm not hungry."

"Oh, then… by all means, skip it," April rolled her eyes. "It's not like you had an IV stuck in you today or anything. Of course, you could always go back to the hospital if you faint again. I'm sure they wouldn't mind keeping you there overnight this time."

Oyuki gritted her teeth. "Pass the sour cream."

April smirked and pushed the carton over to the younger lady. "Good girl."

"Oh, shut up," Oyuki grumbled, spooning the sour cream onto her taco. She picked it up and eyed it for a moment before taking a tentative bite, then glanced up at April. "So… who answered the phone?"

"Hmm? When?"

"When you called the guys earlier."

"Oh," April grinned. "It was Raph."

Oyuki nodded and took another small bite. She could feel April staring at her.

"He said that they're planning on coming by in a while," April went on.

Oyuki looked up suddenly. "All of them?"

"Sounded that way to me."

"Cool," she said with a slight smile.

April leaned her elbows on the table and drew her eyebrows together. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"What was going on with Leo?"

Oyuki dropped her taco. "What?"

"Well, this morning you kinda…" her cheeks started turning pink. "I mean, you weren't exactly being modest…"

Oyuki rubbed the center of her forehead. "I thought he was Mikey, okay?" she interrupted.

"Oh…" April said. "I should have figured it was something like that."

"Then why'd you ask?"

April shrugged. "I guess it's the investigative journalist in me."

Oyuki pushed her plate away and sat back, staring at the overcast sky outside the window. "Uh… Ape? About last night…"

"Yes, I know. Sorry for being nosy, it'll never happen again," April said, waving her hand.

"No, I mean…" she started rubbing her temples, trying to chase out the growing headache. The action didn't help, so she stood and looked down at April. "I'm gonna go take a nap."

April tapped the edge of Oyuki's plate. "You should finish eating. You're going to pass out again."

"Then at least I'll be someplace soft."

Oyuki nearly sprinted to her bedroom, then shut the door and flopped down on her bed, screaming into her pillow. _Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!_ she yelled in her mind. _How hard is it just to tell April that it was Leo last night?_ She rolled her eyes. _Yeah, then that whole naked hugging thing would seem completely innocent. Why the hell do those guys have to look so much alike?_

She sighed and rolled over, staring up at the ceiling. _Well, at least Mikey will be by later. We can finally get this whole mess straightened out._

Oyuki closed her eyes and yawned, then quietly drifted off to sleep.

-


	39. ThirtyNine

* * *

- 

It was evening by the time Michaelangelo came out of his bedroom with _What To Expect When You're Expecting_ in his hand. He said very little to the others, except that it was time to go to Oyuki's place, then he walked out the door without a word, leaving the rest to throw on their coats and catch up to him as he made his way to the surface. Don was the first to make it to his side, just as Mike slipped a manhole cover aside and ascended.

"Did Raph mention that I wanted to talk to you?" Don asked his brother, following him up the ladder.

Mike looked at the heavy clouds above them. "Yeah. What's up?"

"Did you take any of that aspirin yet?" Don asked as they began walking down the darkened sidewalk together.

"Why? You want to get on my case about it, too?"

"What do you mean?"

They both glanced back as Leo climbed out of the sewer and reached a hand down, helping Raph up to the street. Splinter followed a moment later, handing Raph his cane, then Leo replaced the manhole lid and the trio began following Don and Mike as they continued down the sidewalk.

"Leo was giving me a hard time about it, too," Mike said, focusing on his own feet. "Matter of fact, he told me I should to talk to you. So, go ahead and talk."

Don shoved his hands into his pockets. "Well, I did mention it to him a little this morning," Don said, deliberately leaving out the part about staying awake for most of the night studying the matter. "Did you know that aspirin thins the blood?"

Mike sneered. "Thin blood is good?"

"If it keeps flowing, it is," Don said. He took a deep breath. "Truth is, I'm… I've been a little worried about your angina."

"Nothing but a little ache," Mike said. "I can live with it."

Don shook his head. "It could be a warning sign, Mikey."

"A warning sign of what?"

_An impending heart attack,_ Don thought. "Something worse. Just… just do me a favor and take an aspirin if you start to feel anything, okay?"

Mike stopped and looked him in the eye, then glanced over as the rest of their family finally caught up to them. "I'll think about it," he said, stepping along with the newly-formed crowd.

"Do more than think about it," Don said, sounding a bit upset.

"Think about what?" Raphael asked.

Mike jabbed a thumb in Donatello's direction. "Oh, Dr. Donny over here wants me to take my vitamins."

Don let out a low growl and stepped on ahead of the group, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets. Raphael tried to catch up to him, but before he could reach Don's side, he was already through the door to April and Oyuki's apartment building.

"Damn it," Raphael grumbled, staring after him. He shook his head and looked over at Mike, then let his exasperated expression soften. "You ready now?"

"More than I was before," Mike grinned a bit. "Thanks for returning the book, by the way."

Raph shrugged. "Least I could do since you're giving Oyuki hers back."

Mike tapped the copy of _What To Expect When You're Expecting_ against his leg. "Yeah, I guess she needs to read what's in there more than I do."

Raphael threw an arm over Mike's shoulder, pulling him into a quick hug. Mike returned the hug, patting Raph on the shell, then the two pushed apart and looked at the slight smiles on Leo and Splinter's faces.

"About as much privacy as a goldfish," Raph chuckled. He reached over and cuffed Mike on the arm. "Hang in there, little bro," he said, then opened the door to the stairwell and stepped inside.

Mike stood on the concrete steps just outside the door and watched the door swing shut, then tightened his jaw and rubbed the center of his chest. He felt a touch on his arm and jumped, then looked down into his father's eyes and forced a grin.

"How are you feeling?" Splinter asked gently.

"Fine, Sensei… just a little heartburn."

Splinter nodded, then patted his son's arm and made his way into the building. "Do not be too long," he said as the door shut behind him.

Mike swallowed hard and started inside, as well, but a tug on his jacket pulled him back.

"Mikey, can I talk to you for a second?" Leo asked.

Mike turned to face him. "Yeah?"

"Donny was talking to you about the aspirin, right?" Leo released his brother's sleeve.

"What the hell is it with you people and aspirin?"

"We just want to be sure that you're going to be okay. Do you at least have them on you?"

Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle. "Right here," he said, giving it a shake. "Feel better now?"

"A little," Leo said. "But I suppose it'd be too much to ask for you to actually take one if you…"

"Look, I'm okay… okay?" Mike said, shoving the pills back into his jacket. "I know you guys are worried about me and all that, but for crying out loud, I think I can take care of myself for a little while. I didn't die when me and Oyuki were up in…" he waved a hand, stopping himself from saying more on the subject of his disappearance. "You're gonna have to start trusting me again sometime, you know."

Leo hung his head. "We trust you, Mikey. It's just… we just worry about you."

"You're probably worried that I'm going to grab a needle or try to slit my other wrist, right?" Mike said flatly. "Well, don't worry. Lesson learned."

Leo shook his head. "We know you aren't going to do that," he said, trying to chase back too-recent memories. "What we **are** worried about is your heart. You're not very good at hiding the way it's been hurting you, Mikey."

Michaelangelo let out a shaky breath. "I've got other things to think about right now."

"I know," Leo said, glancing up at Oyuki's bedroom window. He looked back at the pained expression on Mike's face and shook his head. "Um... listen. I wasn't trying to, but I overheard you and Master Splinter talking last night... this morning, I mean."

Mike slammed the book from one hand to the other. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Leo nodded. "I didn't mean to, but... well, I heard what you said about wanting to take care of Oyuki and the baby. And I think that's great, I think the two of you'd make wonderful... parents." He stopped, wondering if the last word had been the right one. Mike just stared at him blankly, and Leo cleared his throat and went on. "But you have to think about what's going to happen from here on out... start taking better care of yourself. You want to take care of Oyuki, but... what if something happened... to you?"

Mike let out a breath. "You mean what if I die, right?"

Leo flinched, then gathered his senses. "She needs you, Mikey. They both do." He reached his hand out and hesitated a moment before placing in on his brother's plastron, directly over his heart. "They need this to keep working. Who's going to take care of them if you aren't around to do it?"

Mike looked at him for several long seconds, then reached over and opened the door. He motioned for his brother to go on ahead of him. Leo sighed and began to walk through, but before he made it to the stairs, Mike reached out and grabbed him by the arm.

"Something wrong?" Leo asked, turning around.

Mike let go and glanced away. "Look, I just… thanks, Leo… for trying to help me fix this mess. I guess I didn't tell you yet, but I'm glad you went to talk to Oyuki last night. That's what I should'a done in the first place."

Leo bit his lip. "I probably should have thought it through a little better. I could have made things worse."

"I doubt it," Mike said. "You knew what you were doing. You always do."

"Not always."

Mike grinned and nudged him. "Yeah, pretty much always."

"I screw up too, Mikey," Leo said, letting out a long breath.

"Not as bad as I did," Mike hung his head. "You guys were there for me and I just… I threw it in your faces." He waved his hand up the stairs. "And I'm still doing it. I didn't mean to snap at Donny… or you. I just can't help it."

"You've been through hell, Mikey. It's just going to take a while for things to settle down, that's all."

"A long damn while at this rate," Mike said flatly.

Leo looked up the stairs, then back at his brother. "Ready?"

"Not really," Mike said, shrugging. He glanced down at the book he held and twisted his face into a feeble grin. "But I guess I'd better give this back to Oyuki before she has the baby."

Leo looked at Mike for a moment, then smiled and led them up the rest of the way to the apartment. He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door a crack, peeking inside before stepping across the threshold. The crowd in the living room looked up as the two Turtles entered, but it was immediately apparent that the group was incomplete. Mike's shoulders drooped.

"Oyuki's taking a nap," April said, as if she had sensed what he was thinking.

Mike nodded and walked with Leo into the living room. "Yeah, I guess she had kind of a long day," he said, taking off his jacket and throwing it onto the coffee table. He sat down in an empty chair and slid the book behind him.

Leo looked at the coat, then up at his brother. Mike so seldom took off that old leather jacket that Leo had almost forgotten what he looked like without it anymore. Not that he looked the way he used to, anyway. Mike had once been the most agile and athletic of all of them, but now he barely seemed strong enough to carry his own weight. He was thin, weakened, diminished… it hurt Leo to see him like that.

"Crazy weather, huh?" April said casually. "With the rain, then the heat… and all this humidity." She looked around her, as if hoping someone else would keep the conversation going.

"Humidity? Yeah, the lair's pretty bad," Leo said, forcing his eyes away from his brother. He took off his own jacket and draped it over the arm of the couch but did not sit down. "It's like swimming down there."

Don leaned against the back Mike's chair. "I've been working on a dehumidifying system," he said. "Of course, I've been busy with other things for a while, so it isn't done yet."

Silence again.

Raphael cleared his throat. "So, what was wrong with Oyuki?"

"Oh, her blood sugar was low and she was a bit dehydrated," April shrugged. "Nothing to worry about, really. Just one of the quirks of being…" April's eyes went wide and she slammed her mouth shut.

"It is okay, April," Splinter said. "Everyone is aware of the situation."

"Yeah, it was kind of a comedy of errors," Raphael said, glancing over at Mike.

April chuckled. "Oh, thank goodness," she said. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for a reporter not to spread news around?"

"I noticed this morning," Leo said, grinning. "You looked like you were about to burst at the seams."

"Oh, sure… have a laugh at my expense," she joked, then turned to Mikey. "Well, anyway, it's nice to see that you and Oyuki made up. I was beginning to worry about you two."

"Made up?" Mike asked, tilting his head. "No, not yet. Soon, I hope."

"Oh, come on, Mikey," April teased. "After last night you can't say that you and Oyuki…"

Leo swallowed hard and stepped forward, waving his hands low. "That's why we came by, actually, to give them a chance to talk," he said, trying to sound like he wasn't purposely interrupting her. "So, Mikey… maybe you should just go on ahead and…" he paused, trying to figure out what to say. "…Give Oyuki her book back."

Mike stood and picked up the book, staring at the cover for a moment before looking over at Leo. He drew his eye ridges together, then faced April. "What… what, exactly, do you think happened last night?"

April blushed a little and turned away. "I wasn't trying to be nosy, it was just…"

"April, maybe…" Leo began, but was silenced when Mike shot him a look of warning.

"Just what?" Mike pressed.

April turned a deeper shade of red. "I've never seen you two kiss before… it was cute."

Leonardo closed his eyes. "Shit."

-

* * *


	40. Forty

* * *

Mike spun to look at Leo. "What the hell is going on?" 

"It's not what you think, okay?" Leo held his hands up, trying to calm his brother.

"Anything else you want to tell me?" Mike snapped.

Raph sat up straight, a look of shock and realization on his face. "Well, damn..." He looked over to Don, who shook his head and turned away.

"Wait…" April spoke up, confused. "Someone want to fill me in on what's going on here?"

"And I suppose you kissed her because you were fucking worried about her, right?" Mike yelled at Leo, ignoring April.

"For crying out loud, Mikey," Leo yelled back. "It was dark! She thought I was you!"

Splinter cleared his throat and stood, stepping between his sons and placing a hand on each of their arms. "Perhaps if you…" he began.

Mike yanked his arm away and turned to the side, rubbing his plastron. "Son of a bitch…"

"Perhaps if you talk to Oyuki," Splinter went on, speaking more firmly, "she will be able to clear up this… situation."

"Exactly," Leo said, trying to angle himself well enough to look into Mike's eyes. "Even if you don't believe me, give her the benefit of the doubt."

Michaelangelo looked down at the book in his hand. "Fine," he said, then walked towards Oyuki's door and opened it. He turned around to glare at Leo one more time before stepping into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him.

Leo watched him go, then faced the others. "It was just a mistake."

"Hold on!" April said. "Leo, are you saying that it was you…"

"Yes," Leo broke in. "Yes, okay? You were there, you saw how dark it was… is it so hard to believe that she could've mistaken me for…" he sighed. "It was an accident."

"A royal fucking screw-up is more like it," Don grumbled.

"Donny…" Raphael began.

"I mean, what the hell were you thinking, Leo?"

"Don…"

"I guess now we know what made you assume Oyuki was so happy to see Mikey last…"

Raphael swung his cane up and hit his brother on his scarred shoulder. "Shut the hell up, Donny!"

"What's your problem?" Don yelled, rubbing his arm.

"Leo'd never do something like that on purpose, and you know it," Raphael said, lifting his cane again.

Splinter held up a hand. "That is enough," he said. "This is not the time for raised voices."

Don folded his arms across his chest. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? It's just that there are a thousand things that could set Mikey off right now, and…"

"That's why I didn't want to say anything in the first place," Leo interrupted, sitting down. "Do you really think he'd have reacted any better if I had been the one to tell him? I was hoping he wouldn't find out at all."

April lowered her head. "I'm sorry," she said, letting out a breath. "Leo, I had no idea. If you'd have just said something to me I'd have kept my big mouth shut. I mean, hell… Oyuki didn't even say anything about it."

"Yeah, we both screwed up on that one." He leaned forward, cupping his hands over his face.

Don and Raph looked at one another for a moment, then they both turned towards Leo.

"Sorry," Don said, shrugging.

Raphael let out a quick laugh. "Damn, did **that** hurt?"

"Shut up," Don said, then sat on the arm of Leonardo's chair. He reached over and put a hand on his brother's shoulder for a moment before crossing his arms again. "Really, I'm sorry, Leo. Raph's right... your heart was in the right place." He sighed. "It always is."

Leo looked up at him. "It wasn't my heart I was worried about."

-

Michaelangelo pressed his hand to his chest and listened to the muffled sounds of his brothers arguing in the other room. On this side of the door, however, the situation didn't seem so urgent. He had come in angry and determined to wake Oyuki to ask her what had happened between her and Leo, but now that he saw her sleeping so peacefully in the dim light, he didn't want to disturb her.

_She's had a long day,_ he thought, sighing as he stepped next to Oyuki's bed. _She needs some sleep… I can talk to her later._

Mike placed the book on her bed stand, then glanced down at her face again. His eyes traced down her neck and along her body as it was hidden under the thin sheet, and his attention came to rest on the small lump of her belly. He looked over at the picture of the happy, heavily-pregnant lady on the cover of _What To Expect When You're Expecting_, then turned back to Oyuki and lifted his hand, letting it hover over her for a moment before lowering it down and feeling, for the first time, the place where her child was growing. He gently spread his fingers out, widening his touch, and smile worked its way across his face.

So tiny, he thought, sighing. He leaned close to Oyuki's belly and placed his mouth just an inch away. "You don't know me," he whispered to the baby, "but I love your mommy..."

Before he could say any more, a brief, sharp pain worked its way through Mike's chest and he pitched forward, putting some of his weight on Oyuki. She let out a little noise of surprise, then sleepily pulled the sheet up over her shoulders and rolled to her side. Mike stood up and looked down at her, smiling faintly, then walked to the door and rested his hand on the knob. A slight rustling sound came from behind him and he turned, watching past the darkness as Oyuki sat up in bed.

"Wait… don't go," she said.

Mike released the doorknob and walked to her footboard without a word. She let out a breath and got to her knees on the end of the bed, then reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. He let his arms hang at his sides for a moment, then lifted them and held her close, rubbing his cheek against her soft hair as she shifted her head to his plastron.

"Thank you, Leo," she breathed softly.

Mike pushed back away from Oyuki, staring at her in the near-darkness. _Leo... she thinks I'm Leo,_ he thought. _But why would she be... why the hell is she holding me like this if she thinks..._ He grimaced as another sting pushed its way through his chest. _No... no, give her the benefit of the doubt,_ he told himself. _Give Leo the benefit of the doubt._

But his own doubt pressed down on him. He wanted to hear it from Oyuki… he wanted her to say that it had all been a mistake. Somehow, he had to be sure that she hadn't kissed Leo knowing who he really was.

Without stopping to think, Mike placed a hand on Oyuki's cheek, raising her face up to his. He stared at her for a few seconds, then pulled her into a kiss. She jumped back slightly and her arms slipped down, her hand coming to rest on the back of his neck, then she closed her eyes and took a long breath. She exhaled slowly and pulled him closer, deepening their kiss, and the intensity in her touch took Mike by surprise. He closed his own eyes and allowed himself to fall into the moment... enjoying her nearness, sharing her breath.

Then, suddenly, he pulled away. _She... she thinks I'm Leo..._

Oyuki leaned in again, but he turned his face and reached up, taking hold of her arms and breaking her embrace.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly.

He slid his touch down and held her hands for a moment before letting go and turning away, then he walked quickly to the door and threw it open, storming into the living room.

"What happened?" Raph asked, watching as Mike hastily put on his coat and headed for the apartment door. "Where are you going?"

Mike looked at him for a moment, then at each other face in the room, staring at Leo the longest and hardest, before stalking out of the apartment and slamming the door behind him.

"What the hell?" Leo said, shaking his head. "Now what's wrong?"

"Mikey?" Oyuki called, running out of her room. She looked over at Leo. "Why'd he take off?"

"We were gonna ask you the same thing," Don said, raising an eye ridge.

Leonardo glanced at the darkened bedroom. "Son of a…" he said, then jumped out of the chair and sprinted for the door.

"Leo, what are you…?" Raph began.

"I have to talk to him," Leo interrupted, then opened the door and ran out of the apartment.

* * *


	41. FortyOne

**_Author's note:_**

_I've been putting off posting this chapter for almost two weeks, but I really do have a good reason. From here on out the shell is gonna be hitting the fan pretty steadily in this story, and none of the next few chapters are ones that people are going to want to wait too long to have resolved (if anyone is actually interested, that is). And as I have been mentioning (at Stealthy Stories, etc.), it is probably only a matter of time before I drop off the face of the earth for a while (or, off the face of the internet, anyway) and... well, I don't want anyone to hurt me if I don't get around to the follow-up chapters right away. But I guess I can't keep putting it off on that chance. Who knows, maybe the internet will stay on for a while longer, after all._

_Anyway, consider yourself warned. If you read this chapter (or the next few) you may get a little peeved if it is not updated right away. Don't read 'em if you think you might want to throw something at me if left hanging for too long._

* * *

-

Leo burst out the door and stopped on the front step, looking around for Mike. He found him not far away, standing with his arms crossed tightly over his plastron and leaning against Oyuki's pickup truck. Leo cleared his throat and tried to compose himself before walking to Mike's side.

"Can we talk?" he asked, joining his brother in leaning against the old vehicle.

Mike turned and opened the door, sliding into the driver's seat and slamming the door behind him. Leo shook his head and walked around the truck's bed, helping himself to the passenger's seat and kicking aside a mess of empty soda bottles and other trash at his feet. Mike glanced over at Leo, then reached down and pulled a set of keys out from under the seat. He started the truck and Leo hastily buckled himself in, fearing that Mike would peel out or spin the tires in his anger; but Mike pulled cautiously away from the curb, looking both ways before guiding the truck out of the parking space and beginning to drive slowly down the road.

"So… what happened with Oyuki?" Leo asked, trying to sound casual.

Mike tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "You know, Leo…" he said, stopping at a traffic light. "I thought you, more than anybody else, had some sense of honor."

Leo gritted his teeth. "You didn't even talk to her, did you?"

"Why did you kiss her?" Mike stepped on the gas and drove through the intersection before the light turned green.

"I told you, she didn't know it was me," Leo said slowly. "It was just a mistake."

Mike flexed his fingers. "Okay, from her point of view... fine. She thought you were me the first time. What the hell was your excuse? Even if **she** didn't know, **you** did," Mike took a quick breath. "But you did it, anyway. You kissed her long enough for April to see you do it!"

"What do you mean _the first time_?" Leo asked, putting a hand on the dashboard to steady himself. "It only happened once. It was an **accident**."

"So, you're telling me it meant..." he shook his left arm, then placed his hand back on the steering wheel. "...It meant nothing?"

"Nothing."

Mike sped the truck up more, taking a corner and sending the trash on the floor tumbling over to the driver's side. "And you didn't _feel_ anything in it?"

Leo held his breath. He **had** felt something in their kiss: Oyuki's love for Mike. Deep, real love; the desire to hang on, rekindle. And now Leo felt as if he had stolen something precious from his brother, but he couldn't tell Mike that, not without him taking it the wrong way. All he could say was what Mike needed to hear... no more, no less.

"Nothing," his tongue stumbled over the lie.

"Then why didn't you tell me about it?"

"Because I knew you'd react this way."

Mike looked at him, then back at the road. "That's funny... 'cause you know what she did a few minutes ago?" He rubbed his shoulder, then pressed his hand to his plastron. "Up in her room..."

"What?"

"She kissed me," he drew his eye ridges together and blinked hard.

A slight smile crossed Leo's face. "Well, that's good..." he looked over at Mike, who was scowling. Leo's smile fell. "Isn't it?"

"She thought I was you."

Leo sat silently for a moment, then shook his head. "She _knew_ it was you. She came out asking why you left."

"Yeah?" he coughed. "Then how come she called me by your name?"

Leo stuttered for a moment. "Maybe because I was there the last time she woke up," he said, immediately regretting his choice of words. "Shit, that didn't come out right."

Mike glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "No, it came out just… the way it was supposed to…" he said, his voice cracking. "Maybe… maybe she didn't mean to kiss you before... but she sure as hell meant to this…"

Michaelangelo grimaced and leaned forward, slamming on the brakes. The car behind them swerved around the truck and the driver leaned out the window, shouting at the pair before speeding up and taking off down the street; Leo watched the vehicle go around the next corner, then returned his attention to Mike.

"Are you okay?" he asked, placing a hand on his arm.

Sweat beaded up on Mike's forehead. "I'm fine," he forced out, meeting his brother's gaze.

Leonardo felt a visceral shock. Mike's face held the same look of pain and fear as it had when Leo found him on the bathroom floor, bleeding from his neck and burning up with fever. The look was frightening, deep... it gathered in his eyes and spread out over his pale skin, working its way clear down to his shaking hands.

"Mikey?" Leo squeezed his arm. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Mike sat back in his seat and looked up, blinking rapidly. "Could you just... just do me a favor?"

Leo felt fear rising in his own chest. "What?"

"Take care of her, okay?" he wiped his face with the back of his hand. "She needs someone to take care of her… and the baby…"

"She needs **you**, Mikey," Leo said softly. "She loves you."

Mike turned his eyes towards the floor. "I love her, too, Leo… but I…" his next breath was hindered by a choke rising from his throat. "…It doesn't matter…"

Leo swallowed nervously. "Listen… let's… lets just go back and talk this over the right way. We both need a chance to calm down before…" he didn't finish.

Mike nodded stiffly and took his foot off the brake, then made an awkward u-turn and started heading slowly back towards April and Oyuki's apartment. He drove steadily for a few blocks, then he lurched forward and his foot pressed down on the accelerator as they rounded another corner, again sending the trash sliding across the floor. Mike drew another sharp breath, choking on the exhale, then let his hand slide onto his lap.

"Let me drive," Leo said, grabbing the wheel and silently damning himself for not taking the driver's seat sooner. "Pull over."

Mike nodded and stepped down on the brake, but the truck didn't slow. "There's… there's something under the pedal…" he said, his shoulders heaving with each breath.

"Shit." Leonardo unbuckled and lifted Mike's hand up to the steering wheel, squeezing his grip into place. "Try to hang on to it," he told him. "Just try to keep us from hitting anything."

Mike tightened his fingers and Leo reached down towards the floor at his brother's feet, but he couldn't get to the trash to clear it away. He sat up and looked at Mike's face, now only inches from his own, then shoved his hand into the pocket of the old leather jacket.

"What are you…?" Mike couldn't finish speaking.

Leo pulled out the bottle of aspirin and began to struggle against the childproof cap, managing to open the bottle after what felt like far too many seconds, then took out two of the pills and held them to his brother's lips.

"Take them!" Leo ordered.

Mike squinted at him, then obediently opened his mouth, letting Leo feed him the aspirin. Leonardo patted him on the shoulder, then reached over and grabbed Mike's seatbelt, pulling it across his plastron and buckling him in.

"We have to find a way to stop this thing," Leo sat back and reached for his own shoulder harness. "Where's the emergency brake..?"

Leonardo glanced over at Mike and saw that his brother was slumped over the steering wheel, then looked at the road ahead and saw two headlights fast approaching. He released his seat belt, letting it slide back into the door, then pushed Mike away from the wheel and turned it hard to the right. The truck skidded, barely missing the passing vehicle, and Leo let his eyes follow the car as it turned around the next corner, then returned his sights to the road ahead. It took a moment for him to realize that the road had come to an end, and that the only thing now before them was a brick tenement.

Leo instinctively threw one arm across his brother's chest and lifted the other one to the windshield. _…Oh, God… Mikey, hang on…_

His thought had barely completed when the truck hit the wall, and Leo felt the impact from within as he was thrown forward. There was a moment of weightlessness, then he felt himself move ahead, stop for an instant, then move ahead again. All the while the world seemed to be falling in around him, and through the chaos he was vaguely aware of breaking glass, stinging shards, heavy impact, and shattering bone. His head and the back of his neck hit something hard and he saw a spark of light; then, all at once, the world was still, black, and silent.

Leo felt himself breathe once, then again. _...Mikey... say some..._ he thought, struggling to form the simple words in his mind. _...Say something..._

His next breath brought with it the taste of blood and the tickle of thick liquid seeping down his throat. He tried to cough, to swallow, to turn his head; but all he could do was breathe and listen to the deep fluid gurgle that rose with his next exhaled breath.

_...Just... say you're okay..._

Another breath played at his lips, but went no further. The air in his lungs began to burn even as the chill worked its way deeper; then, suddenly, cold and heat met, shocking him into a liquid gasp before leveling and drifting away. His thoughts and senses followed, fading into the air around him, and for a moment Leonardo was aware of nothing but dark silence… then, nothing at all.

-

* * *


	42. FortyTwo

* * *

- 

"Why didn't you tell me it was Leo here last night?" April scolded.

Oyuki folded her arms tightly across her chest. "I don't know, maybe because it was none of your business?" Her mouth fell open and she glared at April. "Wait… hang on. How did you know it was…? Did Leo tell you?"

"No," April shook her head and sighed. "I kinda mentioned that I saw… that I _thought_ I saw you and Mike kissing. Then Mikey..."

"You told Mikey?" Oyuki threw her hands up in the air. "Oh, perfect. Wonderful. Thanks a lot."

"I didn't mean to. Besides, you knew I saw you two! Why didn't you just say something about it this morning?"

"Hey, good question... let me think," Oyuki said sarcastically. "Oh, that's right... because I would have gotten another lecture."

"What do you mean, _another lecture_? I never lecture you."

"Then what do you call this?" she snapped. "I swear, half the time I feel like I'm right back with my mother. I'm starting to remember why I ran away from her in the first place."

"I'm not trying to be your mother."

"Then stop acting like her! For crying out loud... every time I turn around, you're telling me what to do, where to go, when to eat..."

"Well, maybe if you..."

"Enough," Splinter raised his hand, frowning. "There are more pressing matters at the moment."

April and Oyuki closed their mouths, but continued to glare at one another out of the corners of their eyes.

Raphael cleared his throat. "Yeah, can we just get back on the subject, please?" he said calmly. "Now, what just happened? Why did Mikey take off like that?"

"I have no idea," Oyuki said, crossing her arms again.

Don motioned his head towards her bedroom. "Well, what were you two talking about in there?"

"Nothing! We didn't get a chance to…" Oyuki stopped and her eyes widened. "Oh, shit." She sat down and covered her face with her palms.

Splinter leaned forward, gently placing a hand on her arm. "What is it?"

"He kissed me…."

April raised an eyebrow. "Um… wouldn't that be a _good_ thing?"

"…After I called him Leo."

They all stared at her.

"Wait, so this time you thought he was Leo and you **still** kissed him?" April asked, shaking her head.

"No!" Oyuki yelled, lowering her hands. "And you're lecturing again."

"I am **not**…"

"Look," Oyuki interrupted her, "when he came in, I thought he was Leo, okay? But then **he** kissed **me**, and…" she stopped and let out a breath.

"And…?" April pressed.

"And I felt the back of his neck."

The room fell silent and April glanced over at Don and Raph. "The back of his… what?" she asked, noticing the look of realization on both of their faces.

"His neck," Don sighed.

"Remember when we told you about how all this crap started?" Raph said. "Mike got stabbed in the back of the neck by a needle. It left a mark… a lump and a scar." He rubbed the back of his own neck. "Hasn't gone away yet."

"Maybe never will," Don mumbled.

Oyuki nodded. "I knew what it was as soon as I felt it. I mean, hell… I felt it before. He told me all about what happened to him when we were…" she let her voice trail off and the room again drifted into silence. She rested a hand on her belly and stared up at the ceiling, then glanced over at Raph and Don. "I guess you guys don't even know why Mikey was so pissed off to begin with," she said, pursing her lips.

Raph smirked. "Yeah… we know."

Oyuki's eyes widened again, then a crooked grin crossed her face. "Figures," she said, shaking her head. "So, how'd you…"

Before she could say another word, the sound of skidding and a sudden crash came from somewhere outside. Don rose and walked to the open window, peering out into the night, then turned back to the group. "I can't see anything," he said, shrugging.

Oyuki stood and joined him the window, leaning against the pane. "So, how'd you guys find out, anyway?" she continued.

"By accident," Raphael struggled to his feet and limped to her side, leaving his cane on the couch. "If you can believe that."

"Yeah, I can believe it," she chuckled, then turned and looked down at the street below. Her grin fell. "Where's my truck? Son of a bitch… someone stole my truck!"

Raph looked outside, then tightened his jaw and drew his eye ridges together. "Oyuki," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. "Does Mikey have a set of your keys?"

"No. Why?"

"Do you keep a spare set anywhere?"

"Under the front seat," she said, nodding.

Raphael grabbed Don by the elbow and started pulling him towards the door. "Come on!"

"What are you doing?" Don yanked his arm from his brother's grip.

"We have to go. Now!"

"What's going on?" Oyuki asked, stepping away from the window.

Splinter stood suddenly, an uncommon expression of fear on his aged face. He glanced back towards the door, then looked over at his sons. "Quickly," he said, his voice cracking on the single word.

Don looked at his father and drew a quick breath. "Oh, my God…"

Raphael grabbed his cane off the couch. "Master, stay with April and Oyuki. Donny, let's..." he turned towards where his brother had been, but Donatello was already out of the apartment and on his way down the stairs. Raph limped out the door after him, going as quickly as his injured leg would allow, and soon he heard a set of footsteps following close behind. He looked over as April grabbed him under his arm.

"April, you shouldn't…" he began.

"I'm coming with you," she said flatly, helping him along. "Splinter can keep an eye on Oyuki."

He gave her a nod and a small grin as they stepped out of the building's front door. "Thanks."

Donatello was at the corner by the time the other two made it to the sidewalk. "Not this way!" he yelled, pointing up one of the streets as he turned and ran back towards them. "Hurry up!"

"Shhh!" Raph scolded. "Keep it down!"

"Go to hell," Don snapped, sprinting past and vanishing around another corner.

April and Raph shared a look, then followed after him, but by the time they reached the corner he was already on his way back around.

Raphael dodged out of his way. "Slow down!"

"Keep up!" Don countered, then turned onto another street.

He stopped in the middle of the road and lifted his head, sniffing at the air, then looked at April and Raph as they finally made it to his side. His eyes darted back and forth, then grew wide and he began to run again.

"What is it?" April yelled after him.

"Voices! And gasoline!" Don hollered back, slowing his pace and looking up and down the side roads more intently. The sound of distant sirens drifted through the darkness and Don looked to the others, gritting his teeth. "Come on!"

He started running again, then stopped in mid-step, glaring at a group people who were talking excitedly to one another and pointing at something nearby.

"Get the hell out of here!" Don yelled, jumping in front of the gawking crowd and waving his arms in the air. "Go!"

The group let out a chorus of screams and the people split up, running off in all directions. Don glanced up at the building across the street, scowling at the humans staring out from behind their curtains, then looked over at April and Raph as they came near.

"Fuck… there's gonna be more…" Don turned to where the crowd had been pointing and stopped, focusing on a crushed vehicle that lay just outside the bright beams of a streetlight. "Shit…"

The three of them made their way to the pickup and Raphael let his cane clatter to the ground as he yanked on the handle of the driver's side door. The door refused to open, so he slammed his shoulder into it and lifted up, managing to wrench it loose. He stared at Michaelangelo's quiet figure for a moment, then carefully tilted his head back and examined a large welt across his brow.

"Mikey," Raph said softly, placing a finger on his throat. "Mikey, can you hear me? C'mon, wake up, bro…" Raph glanced back at April. "He's got a pulse… weak, but there. He's breathing…"

April sighed and placed a hand on her chest. "Oh, thank God…"

Donatello could hear the relieved tone in their voices, but his own voice was frozen in his throat as he stared at a thick red puddle near the truck's front tire. He held his breath and lifted his eyes, tracing the streams of blood that coursed along the metal furrows of the crushed hood, then he gasped and stumbled back, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the chest.

April glanced at Don, then looked to the truck's hood. She threw her hand over her mouth and backed away, bumping into Raphael. He looked at her for a moment before shifting his attention through the shattered windshield and shuddering as a rush of cold traveled up his spine.

"Jesus… Leo…"

Don let out a breath and stepped ahead, tentatively taking hold of Leonardo's wrist and squeezing it. "Leo..? Listen to me…" he paused, staring into his brother's vacant, half-open eyes. "If you can hear me, try to… try to blink or something." Don placed a hand on his cool cheek, pulling back when he felt slashes hidden under the blood. "Can you hear me, Leo?"

"Is he… is he going to be okay?" April asked, chewing on her lip.

"I don't know," Donatello wiped away the blood flowing from the corner of his brother's mouth, cringing when Leo's head lolled to the side. "He looks… bad."

"Do you think you can carry him?" Raphael let out a shaky breath.

"We shouldn't," Don wiped his own eyes with the back of his hand. "For all we know, his neck could be broken. We can't… we can't risk moving him," he glanced over at Mike again. "Either of them."

Raphael shook his head, frowning. "We don't have a choice," he reached over Mike and unbuckled his seatbelt. "We gotta get them out of here before the cops show up."

Donatello rubbed the center of his forehead, then nodded and carefully worked his hands under Leonardo, hesitating for a moment before lifting him off the hood. Don let out a yell as pain punched into his scarred arm and his hands slipped; Leo's head and arm flopped to the side and Don winced, then pulled Leo closer, guiding his head up onto his shoulder.

Raphael looked at Don's pained expression, then down at Leonardo's blank stare before returning his attention to Mike. Raph took a deep breath and grabbed his brother by the arm, then gritted his teeth and tried to pull him out from behind the steering wheel, but only managed to move him a couple of inches towards the door. He pushed his knee against the side of the truck and grabbed the top of Mike's shell, then summoned his strength again, jostling him back and forth and pulling back hard. Mike slid out of the vehicle and Raphael caught him, but pain shot through Raph's injured leg and he collapsed backward, sending them both to the ground.

"Damn it!" Raph yelled, trying to stand. "April! I need…"

Before he could finish speaking, April was on Mike's other side. She grunted and lifted his limp arm over her shoulders, then stood up as straight as she could and nodded. Raph looked up at her, then grabbed his cane off the ground, struggling to his feet and guiding Mike's other arm across his own shoulders. April let out a heavy breath as some of the weight was taken off her, then looked up suddenly as a short burst of siren came from somewhere just around the corner.

"Son of a bitch." Don gritted his teeth and tilted his head towards the shadows of a nearby alley, then quickly made his way to it with Leonardo cradled in his arms.

Raphael and April followed him, struggling to keep Mike supported, and slipped into the darkness a few seconds before alternating red and blue lights illuminated the ruined vehicle behind them. Raph let out a long breath and shook his head, mouthing the words, _Damn, that was close_.

"April," Donatello whispered, stomping on a manhole cover. "Open this!"

April looked at Raph, then carefully let go of Mike. Raphael grunted against the sudden weight, but said nothing as April made her way to the manhole and slid her slender fingers into the holes. She gathered her strength and lifted the lid just enough to get it onto the edge, then sat down and kicked it away before sliding herself into the sewer and reaching up to help the others down.

Awkwardly and in silence, the three of them managed to get Leo and Mike below, then Don slid the lid back into place and bent over, taking Leonardo back up into his arms and heading in the direction of the lair before Raphael and April even managed to get Mike off the sewer floor. Don could hear the sound of their feet and Raph's cane echoing behind him, but the sounds grew more distant as Donatello rushed on ahead. He fought back the pain in his arm and lifted Leo higher, placing his ear to his brother's mouth, hoping to hear him take a breath, to make any noise at all -- but he could hear nothing but his own labored breathing and his feet splashing through the ankle-deep sewer water.

_Just hold on, Leo…_ Don thought, trying to walk faster. _We're almost home… just hold on…_

After what seemed like far too many minutes, Don reached the door to the lair and kicked it open. He rushed through the living room and burst into the infirmary, laying Leo down on one of the exam beds and again placing his fingertips on his wrist, searching for a pulse.

"Come on… come on, Leo… give me something…" He pressed harder for a few seconds, then gritted his teeth and slid his fingers through the wet blood on his brother's throat, feeling around more desperately. "Anything, damn it…"

He placed a touch on the other side of Leo's neck, then leaned over, bringing his ear close to Leo's mouth and holding his own breath as he listened. Don shook his head fearfully and turned, finding himself face-to-face with Leo, staring down at his own reflection in the darks of his eyes. He felt a sudden jolt in his chest and lifted both hands, wiping the blood off Leo's eyelids and pushing them open more, staring deeper.

"Oh, God…" Don swallowed hard and stood back, reaching over to the counter and grabbing a small penlight, hesitating for a moment before switching on the beam. "Damn it, Leo… don't do this…" he whispered, shining the light at one of Leonardo's pupils. Don's heart sank in his chest and he cycled the light to Leo's other eye, then back again. He brought the beam closer, leaning near and looking hard for any reaction. Seeing nothing but static darkness, Don slammed the penlight down on the bloody sheet and grabbed Leo by the shoulders, shaking him roughly. "Don't fucking do this!"

Leonardo's arm shifted, sliding limply to the side and hanging off the edge of the bed. Don tilted his head down, watching as blood dripped from his brother's fingers, onto the tile floor, then looked back up at Leo's torn face and raised a fist, pounding it against his plastron. He let out a slow breath and gently spread his fingers out, sliding his hand across Leonardo's still form and bringing his touch to rest above his heart.

_Leo… Jesus, Leo…_ Donatello stared into his brother's quiet eyes for many long seconds, then lowered his head and squeezed his own eyes shut. _I'm sorry…_

-

* * *


	43. FortyThree

* * *

_**Note: I will soon be changing the rating of this story to M (I don't think M stories show up on a regular search, so I am giving folks the heads-up, just in case they only ever look at it if it appears on the front page)**_

* * *

- 

Michaelangelo seemed to grow heavier with every step April and Raphael took, and by the time they got him to the infirmary his knees were dragging along the floor. The two of them lifted him up onto an empty exam bed and Raphael leaned close, listening as his brother let out a shallow breath.

"Att'a boy," he said, putting a finger on Mike's wrist and counting out a slow pulse. "Just hang in there, kid."

"What do you need me to do?" April asked, placing a hand on Mike's brow.

Raph glanced down at the floor, which was wet with tracked-in sewer water. "Get some towels. Last thing we need is to slip in here." He looked up at her and swallowed hard. "And Call Master Splinter. We're gonna need him."

April nodded, then ran out of the infirmary; Raph watched her go, then looked over at Don, who was standing silently with his hand on Leonardo's plastron. "How's Leo doing?" Raphael asked, turning back to Mike. There was no answer, and Raph looked over his shoulder again. "Donny?"

Donatello picked a penlight up off the mattress and slowly stepped back, then turned and took one long stride to the other bed, switching on the beam and shining it into one of Michaelangelo's eyes. He let out a relieved sigh, then shifted the light to Mike's other pupil.

Raph grabbed Donatello by the arm, spinning him around. "How's Leo?" he repeated.

Don met his brother's gaze and shook his head. "We have to do what we can for Mikey."

"What are you…?" Raphael looked at the tear tracks cutting through the blood on Donatello's face and let go, pulling back as if he had just been burned. "What the hell are you saying…?"

"I was…" Don looked down. "It's too late."

Raph turned to Leo's still form and placed a touch on his throat. Donny was wrong… he had to be wrong. This couldn't happen. "We can't just…" Raphael spun back around and grabbed Don by the shoulders, slamming him against the counter. "We have to do something!"

"We can't," Don struggled against his hold.

"Why the hell are you just giving up on him?"

"Let me go!"

"**Do** something!" Raphael tightened his grip.

"Do _what_?" Don yelled. "What do you want me to do? Apologize? He was my brother, too, Raph! I didn't want this to happen any more than you did, but he's gone, and I'll be damned if I'm going to lose Mikey, too! Now let me go!"

"But… but Leo…" he began to shake. _Oh, God… Jesus, no…_

"Raph… please…"

Raphael slowly released his grip, then looked down at the blood on his hands and turned around. He stared at Leonardo's quiet face, then traced his gaze down his neck, to his right arm, which hung unnaturally over the edge of the bed. Raph gently took hold of the twisted limb and guided it up onto Leo's plastron, wincing as he felt bones scraping together under limp muscles, then reached over and lifted Leo's other hand, draping it over the first.

_Damn it, Leo… guys like you don't die like this._ Raphael placed his own hand on his brother's bloody forehead. _Not without a fight… not without a fucking reason._

"I need you over here," Don said, adjusting an oxygen mask over Mike's face.

Raph looked at him, then turned back around and slowly slid his palm down over Leo's eyes, easing them shut. "I'm… we have to take care of Mikey now," he whispered. "He's gonna be okay, Leo. We're gonna make sure he's okay…" He stared for a moment longer, then lowered his hand and stepped back.

"Help me get Mikey's jacket off," Don said softly as he came near.

Raph wiped the tears off his cheeks. "We can help him… right?"

Don locked eyes with his brother, but didn't answer.

A faint choking noise came from the doorway and the two turtles looked over. April stood just inside the room, her arms full of clean towels and her eyes fixed on Leonardo. The shock and grief on her face showed that she had been standing there for a while, that she had heard everything they had said.

"Did you call Splinter?" Raphael asked, trying to compose himself.

April looked at him for a moment, then stepped over to Leo's bed, laying the towels down at his feet. "They… they're on the way," she breathed, running her fingers along the edge of the mattress. She slid her touch up Leo's side, onto his plastron, then gently took hold of his hand. "Splinter wanted to know if they were… if Mikey and Leo were okay. I… I didn't know what to tell him."

Raphael tightened his jaw as he and Don struggled Mike out of his jacket. How were they going to tell Splinter about Leo? How were they going to tell him that one of his sons was dead? Another tear escaped from Raph's eye, but he didn't wipe it away. Maybe… just maybe if Splinter saw it, they wouldn't have to tell him. Maybe he would just know without them having to say it out loud…

"April, we're going to need your help," Don said, his voice authoritative but thin. "Could you get the…" he twisted to look at April, who had her head bowed and her eyes shut. Don turned back around. "Raph, get me the stethoscope… the electronic one with the amplifier."

Raphael let out a breath and nodded, then ran to the counter and grabbed the scope. He made his way past Leo's bed on his way back and glanced down, looking into his brother's eyes, then stopped in mid-step, drawing his eye ridges together. "What the hell…?"

April looked up at him. "What?"

"I need that stethoscope," Don said.

Raphael put a hand on Leo's slashed cheek. "Donny, come over here…"

"Now, Raph."

"Come take a look at…"

"I don't have time for this," Don snapped, grabbing the scope out of Raph's hands.

Raphael snatched the instrument back and switched on the mini amplifier, then pressed the cupped end to Leo's chest. "Come on… come on…" he whispered, turning up the volume on the small speaker. He moved the scope around Leo's plastron and shook his head. "Donny… you made this damn thing, am I not doing this right..?"

Donatello scowled and grabbed Raph by the arm, spinning him around and sending the stethoscope tumbling to the mattress beside Leo. "Damn it, do you want to lose Mikey? 'Cause that's what going to happen if…"

"Donny, you don't…"

"Look! I feel the same way, okay? But I don't want Mikey to die just because you fucking refuse to let go!"

"But, his eyes…"

"Shut up!" Don yelled, pushing him away. "Just shut the hell up! We need to…"

"Guys!" April hollered.

The turtles turned around towards April, who had the cupped end of the stethoscope pressed to Leo's plastron. She chewed on her lip and adjusted the volume on the small speaker, revealing the faint but definite sound of a beating heart. Donatello's mouth fell open and he grabbed the instrument away from April, adjusting the amplifier and holding his breath as the faint beat grew louder--though no stronger or faster--with the increased volume. Don turned to Mike's bed, looking down at his face for a moment before grabbing the penlight and returning to Leonardo's side. He turned on the light and aimed it at Leo's pupil again, then frowned and shook his head.

"There's nothing there…"

Raphael tapped Leo's plastron, right above his heart. "There's something there…" he countered.

_Something there,_ Don thought. _A heartbeat… it's something, but…_ He looked down at the penlight in his grip, then up into Raphael's hopeful eyes. "He needs oxygen… and blood," he said, trying to keep the doubt out of his voice. "A lot of blood…"

Raph nodded. "That's my job," he limped over to the only empty bed left in the infirmary and pushed it to Leonardo's left side. "Leo needs those hands of yours," he said, leaping up onto the mattress.

Don glanced at Michaelangelo again, then set the penlight down on a metal tray and turned to April. "Go stand with Mikey," he told her, reaching under the bed and switching on the ventilator stored there. He grabbed the clear mask and slipped it over Leonardo's face. "Tell me right away if he… if he does anything." Don ran to the sink and washed his hands, then grabbed a bottle of alcohol and some gauze off the counter, returning to his brothers' beds. "This isn't going to do any good," he whispered, pushing Raph onto his shell. "He's too far gone."

"If anybody can help him, it's you," Raphael said softly.

Don poured some alcohol onto the crook of his brother's arm. "I'm not a fucking doctor."

"You're the closest we've got."

Donatello opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound he heard a loud gasp. He spun around to look at April, but she was standing quietly by Mike's bed with his hand in her own. Her eyes, however, were focused on the far side of the room. Don and Raph both followed her gaze and saw Oyuki standing in the infirmary doorway with her eyes wide and her hand clamped over her mouth.

"Shit," Don turned to April and motioned his head towards Oyuki. "Get her the hell out of here. It isn't good for her to be seeing this right now."

April gently let go of Mike's hand and started walking to the door, but even as she did so, Oyuki began to sink to the floor. The young lady collapsed to her knees, but she didn't stop looking at the scene before her. April got to her side, helping her to her feet just as Splinter bounded into the infirmary.

"What happened?" he asked, fear in his old voice.

"An accident," Raph said as Don tied a length of rubber tubing around his arm. "The truck…"

"It doesn't matter what happened," Don snapped. "Wash up, Master."

Raphael watched as Splinter ran to the sink, then he looked back towards the women, who remained standing by the door. Oyuki was pale, swaying back and forth, still staring at the unconscious turtles in the middle of the room. Her knees started to give way underneath her again and April grabbed her under the elbow.

"Just… just get her out of here, April," Raph said, pointing towards the living room. "Talk to her, calm her down… _something_. Just get her out of here before she passes out."

April let out a breath and nodded, then turned and pulled Oyuki out of the infirmary. The younger lady looked back over her shoulder, then April slowly closed the door and helped her to the couch.

"What… what happened?" Oyuki asked, hugging her knees.

April sat down beside her and placed a shaky hand on her shoulder. "I… I don't know, exactly… just that Mikey was driving. He was buckled in, but Leo…"

Oyuki closed her eyes. "Oh, God… this is my fault…"

"Hey, it was an accident, that's all," April said, squeezing her shoulder. "They're going to be okay."

Oyuki jumped to her feet and pointed at the infirmary door. "How the hell is **that** _okay_?" she yelled, tears coursing down her face. "Shit, April! Leo is…" she stopped and sat on the floor, leaning forward and grabbing her head.

April stood and walked over to her, kneeling down. "He's still alive," she said gently. "They both are. They just…"

"Shut up!" Oyuki screamed, shoving her away. "God… I've never seen that much blood…"

"Listen to me," April grabbed the young girl by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Donny is in charge in there, and there is no way in hell he is going to let either one of them…" she stopped and swallowed hard. "They're going to be okay…"

--

Don checked the small blood pump that connected Leonardo and Raphael, then looked over at Splinter. "Master, I need you to keep an eye on Mikey," he said, walking quickly to a large cabinet. "Tell me if anything changes… if he breathes different, if he makes a sound, if he so much as twitches…"

Splinter nodded and stepped to his son's bed, gently wrapping one hand around Michaelangelo's wrist and resting the other on his forehead. Splinter let out a shaky sigh and glanced from Mike to Leo, then looked up at his other children.

"It'll be okay, Sensei," Raphael said, seeing the pain in his father's eyes. "You know Donny… he'll…" Raph glanced at Leo and stopped, sitting up and staring intently at his brother's clear ventilator mask. "Hey, Donny…?"

"Lay back," Don ordered, stepping between the beds and placing a sterile intravenous kit on the metal tray.

Raph rested his head back on his pillow. "What's on Leo's mouth?"

"Blood," Don said, opening the packet.

"No, it isn't…"

Donatello looked at Raph, then spun around to Leo, leaning close and examining the pale liquid pooling under his oxygen mask. "What the hell…?" He lifted the mask away and ran a finger through the thick fluid, then grabbed the penlight off the tray and eased Leonardo's mouth open, aiming the beam at the back of his throat. "Oh, God…"

"What's wrong?"

"Cerebrospinal fluid is leaking into his sinuses." Don threw the penlight down and grabbed one of the towels at the foot of the bed, wiping away the blood around Leo's eyes. He placed a touch to the raised purple skin. "Periorbital bruising…"

Raphael gripped the sheet under him. "What does that mean?"

Donatello flexed his fingers, then slowly slid his hand under Leo's neck, guiding his touch up to the back of his brother's head. "Jesus…" He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Donny?"

"His… his skull is broken," Don said, easing his hand out. "Maybe his neck, too… I don't know."

Raphael jumped, sitting up straight. "Can you… can you fix it?"

"No, I can't fucking fix it," Don yelled, twisting around to look at Raphael. "And I told you to lie down!"

"Then what the hell are we gonna…?"

Don shoved Raph back onto his shell. "You're gonna shut up and lay still like a nice little blood bank, or I'm gonna strap your ass down," he said, running to a large chest on the far side of the room. He rooted through and brought out a large neck brace, then returned to Leo's bedside and slipped the brace onto his neck. "Damn it… I knew we shouldn't have moved him," he said, sliding the ventilator mask back over Leo's mouth.

"Donatello!"

"What's…?" Don began, spinning to look at his father, but he stopped when he saw Michaelangelo's heaving chest and pale, sweaty face. He sprinted to Mike's side and placed a finger on his throat, feeling a rapid pulse under his cool skin. "Shit… don't do this now, Mikey…" Donatello looked back at Leo, then down at Mike again. "Not now…"

"What is it?" Raphael asked, sitting up again.

Don turned on his heel and ran to the infirmary door, swinging it open, then grabbed the doorjamb and leaned out into the living room. Oyuki was asleep, curled up on the floor with her head resting on her friend's lap, but April was awake and looked up as the door swung open.

"April! I need you in here!" Don yelled. "Now!"

The woman took a sudden breath. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "April, please… I need an extra set of hands…"

April's eyes widened fearfully and she eased Oyuki off her lap, onto the tattered throw rug, then stood and quickly followed Don into to the infirmary. She looked back at the girl one more time before closing the door.

Oyuki opened her eyes and stared at the bloody handprint Donatello had left behind. She hadn't been sleeping, she had just pretended to so April wouldn't try to give her any more words of comfort. There was only so many times she could listen to "it's not your fault" and "they are going to be okay"… she didn't believe it. Any of it. There was no way Leo and Mike were going to be okay, not after this.

She held her breath and listened to the people in the infirmary as they spoke frantically to one another. She couldn't hear them clearly, but she knew what was going on, she knew what the tones in their voices meant.

_They're dying,_ she thought, lying on her back and resting a hand on her belly. _Oh, God… Leo and Mikey are in there dying because of me…_

-

* * *


	44. FortyFour

**This is the longest chapter yet. I know there are grammatical errors (just so you know, I just misspelled "grammatical" -- the spell check caught me). Sorry about the mess-ups, but I can't focus too well at the moment, know what I mean? Oh, yeah... the stuff in italics is a flashback/dream. I hope it doesn't get too confusing... the time jumps should be easy enough to spot :)**

**

* * *

**

* * *

**Forty-Four**

Donatello looked down at the vivid red towel in his hands. A few hours ago it had been white, but now it was stained with blood -- just like the grout between the floor tiles, just like the sheets on the exam beds, just like Don's own skin. He wanted to get rid of the smell and the stickiness, to try to forget where it had come from... but he couldn't. Not yet. April was in the shower now, and when she got done it would be time to wake Splinter from his bed of piled sheets on the infirmary floor so the old one could have his turn. Don would wait -- he had waited this long, a little while longer wouldn't make any difference. Besides, he still had work to do.

The turtle draped the towel over his shoulder and reached into his belt, pulling out his penlight, then turned to Michaelangelo's bed. He opened Mike's eyes and shined the light in, noting with relief that they reacted as they should, then turned off the penlight and slid it back into his belt. Mike was breathing steadily, and a touch on his throat told Don that his heart was, at the very least, doing its job -- though it seemed to be doing so reluctantly. Still, it was enough for the time being -- it was enough that Mike was still alive. Don wasn't going to take that for granted. Not after the evening they had all just been through.

He stared for a moment longer, then turned and stepped to Raphael's side, placing a touch on his wrist. Raph's pulse was strong, his breathing normal. It wouldn't be long before he woke up, but he shouldn't have been there at all. He should have been on his feet already, not lying in an exam bed with a sedative running through his system and eleven stitches in his head.

"Just so you know," Don whispered, smiling slightly, "I'm going to kick your ass when you wake up." Don's smile fell. "Nothing like good intentions to screw things up, huh?"

Don patted Raphael on the shoulder, then slowly turned around to Leonardo's bed. He took the penlight out again and stared down at it, then slid it back into his belt and gripped the backrest of a chair, pulling it over to Leonardo's side. He sat down and placed a hand on his brother's left arm. He wasn't going to check Leo's eyes again. Not now. He'd already checked dozens of times over the past few hours, and each time he saw the same lack of response. There was nothing to search for, nothing to see... nothing left to do but sit and listen to Splinter and Raphael's soft snoring and the cycling hum of two ventilators. Donatello's mind began to drift and his eyes closed. His head drooped suddenly and he sat up straight, blinking hard.

_Damn it... I gotta get off my ass before I fall asleep,_ he thought, then leaned over and rested his head on the bloody sheet...

_-  
--  
---  
Donatello pushed Leonardo onto his side, then reached under the bed and brought out a pillow, shoving it under his shell._

_"Why are you…?" Raphael began, scratching around the transfusion line in his arm._

_"So he won't breathe it in," Don snapped._

_"Breathe what?"_

_"The cerebrospinal fluid," Don said. He looked at the confused expression on Raphael's face. "It's supposed to act like a shock absorber for the brain and spinal column, but when his skull broke, it…" Donatello stopped at the sound of a gasp and looked back at April, who was standing by Mike's bed. "Is everything okay?"_

_"I just... I didn't..." she stuttered, staring at Leo._

_"She was not aware of the full extent of Leonardo's injuries," Splinter said softly._

_Don rubbed the center of his forehead. "Just tend to Mikey," he said, then turned back to Leo and lifted his ventilator mask, letting the viscous liquid drain away. "The fracture opened a way for the fluid to leak into his sinuses and ears," Don continued. "It's also allowing bacteria to get in, so we're going to have to set him up on antibiotics right away."_

_"How bad is it?" Raphael asked, sitting up._

_Donatello grabbed a bottle of alcohol and shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted, pouring the alcohol over Leo's slashed right arm. "The impact could have forced bone fragments into his brain, but if he's bleeding inside his skull the fracture could actually give the blood a way out so it doesn't build up under there." He pulled open a drawer under the tray and grabbed a large square of gauze, then wiped around one of the deeper cuts on Leo's arm._

_"What'll happen if it does?"_

_"Don't ask." Don threw the gauze down and grabbed a suture kit out of the drawer, tearing it open and pulling out the pre-threaded needle. "And lie down."_

_"Can ya do anything 'bout it?" Raphael pressed, his voice slurring slightly. "I mean... could'ya do anything for 'im if... you know?"_

_Donatello glared at Raph, then looked back down and slid the needle through the skin on Leonardo's arm. "You mean besides drilling a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure?"_

_Raphael shuddered and laid back on his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut._

_"Donny!"_

_"Donatello!"_

_April and Splinter called out at once and Don spun around to look at them. He didn't have to ask what they needed when he saw Michaelangelo's eyelids fluttering and his head rocking from side to side. Don quickly tied off the stitch he had just completed, then turned and stepped to Michaelangelo's side, leaning in close. "Mike? Hey, Mikey… can you hear me?"_

_Michaelangelo grimaced and his eyes opened for a few seconds, then rolled back and closed again._

_"That's… that's a good sign, right?" April asked, taking hold of Mike's hand._

_Don looked at her, then turned back to his brother, placing a finger on his throat. "I don't know."_

_Splinter rested his palm on Mike's cool, damp forehead. "As I understand it," he said, his apparently calm voice cracking slightly, "blood transfusions are often called for when a person is in shock."_

_"From what I've read, it doesn't do any good when the shock is because of..." Don let his voice trail off._

_"'Cause'a a heart'tack," Raphael mumbled, his eyes still shut._

_Donatello nodded in agreement._

_"Are you certain that is what happened?" Splinter asked._

_Don swallowed hard. "Ape, go to Mikey's room and get the nitroglycerine," he said, motioning with his head towards the door. He watched as the woman ran out of the infirmary, then looked at his father for a moment before turning his eyes to the floor._

_Splinter placed a hand on his son's arm. "What is it?"_

_"I saw this coming, master," Donatello said, letting out a breath. "I knew there was something wrong, but I just couldn't… I talked to Leo about it, and I tried to explain it to Mikey on the way to the apartment, but…" Before he could say any more, Don felt Michaelangelo's throat tense under his touch. He looked down, watching as his brother started breathing faster and harder. Mike's mouth opened wide under the clear mask, then his throat muscles tensed again and his chest suddenly stopped heaving. Donatello held his own breath and leaned down, lifting the mask and listening closely. "Oh, God…" Don whispered, then angled Mike's head back and pressed their mouths together, breathing into him._

_Splinter grabbed Michaelangelo's wrist, then nodded at Donatello, telling him with a look that Mike's heart was still beating. Don gave his brother two more breaths, then glanced up as April ran back into the room._

_"Is this the one?" she asked, thrusting a small bottle out to him._

_Don glanced at the label and nodded, then gave Mike another quick breath. "Open it and…" he began, but stopped when Mike gave a loud gasp, jolting himself back to breathing on his own. Donatello allowed himself a sigh of relief, then watched as April opened the bottle and removed one of the pills. She handed it to him and Don slid the pill under Mike's tongue, then eased the oxygen mask back down over his face._

_"Is it going to help?" April asked, closing the bottle and setting it down on the bed._

_"I hope so," Donatello said, then spun around and grabbed the electronic stethoscope off the tray behind him. Movement in the doorway attracted his attention and he lifted his eyes, looking to where Oyuki stood clutching the doorjamb and staring silently at the group at the center of the room. Don glanced at Raphael, who seemed to be asleep, then motioned to the young lady. She took a step back before cautiously making her way into the room and up to Leonardo's bed._

_"April, keep an eye on Mikey's breathing and pulse," Don said to the redhead, then turned to his father. "Master, take Mike's blood pressure. When you're done with that, I need you to help me get Leo patched up." Don watched Splinter grab the blood pressure cuff, then the turtle turned and stared past Leonardo, into Oyuki's eyes. "I'm gonna set you to work, too," he told her softly. He reached over Leonardo, taking Oyuki's hand and guiding it onto the cupped end of the scope, then pressed it down hard against Leo's plastron. "I just want you to listen…" Don said, adjusting the volume and revealing a faint thump. "If you hear any change at all, tell me. Okay?"_

_Oyuki nodded slowly, but said nothing._

_Donatello patted her on the arm, then walked quickly around the bed, to Raphael's side. He switched off the blood pump and listened to it cycle down, then put a hand on Raph's shoulder and gave him a shake. "Hey, you okay?"_

_Raph opened his eyes a bit. "…Yeah, bro…" he said groggily. "…Jus' feelin' kinda… drained, s'all…" Raphael chuckled slightly and closed his eyes again._

_Don sighed, then looked over as April came near. "Something wrong?"_

_April glanced at Oyuki. "You sure she should be in here?" she whispered, leaning close to Don._

_Donatello grabbed a clean square of gauze from the drawer. "She wants to be in here."_

_"But what if she…?"_

_"She'll be fine, Ape."_

_"You said it wouldn't be good for her to see this."_

_"She's already seen it," Don pressed the gauze to the crook of Raphael's arm and slowly pulled out the transfusion line. "At least this way she'll feel like she's helping."_

_As it turned out, Oyuki didn't stay in there for long. After finishing up with Raphael, Don returned to Leo's side, joined a moment later by Splinter. The two continued patching up Leonardo's cuts, and Oyuki set the stethoscope down on the bed, then backed out of the room without a word. Don watched her go, then picked up the stethoscope and stepped over to April, handing it to her. The two shared a look, then April turned to Mike and Donatello turned away._

_…  
…  
…_

_"What'cha need me t'do now, Donny?"_

_Don spun around and looked at Raphael, who was standing next to the metal tray, swaying back and forth. "Lie down."_

_"M'okay," Raphael said. "Sure that's enough blood for 'im?"_

_"What the hell do you want me to do? Drain you dry?"_

_"If you haf'ta."_

_Donatello turned and pushed Raphael back towards the empty bed, leaving a bloody handprint on his plastron. "I don't have time for this."_

_Raph waved his hand, throwing himself off-balance, then recovered his footing and blinked hard. "I wanna help…"_

_"You can help by doing as you're told for once." Don leaned over and examined a cut under Leo's eye. "Unless you want me to sedate your ass."_

_"S'awright, Donny… I'm good… I can… uh…"_

_Donatello heard the slurring in his brother's voice and turned back around. "Raph?"_

_Raphael wobbled, then tilted to the side. "…Yeah, okay… maybe I'm a little…" He lurched back and his shell hit the exam bed behind him. "…Little bit woozy…"_

_Don grabbed him by the arm. "Get back in bed."_

_Raphael nodded, but the nod was less an affirmative gesture than it was a vain attempt to keep his head upright. His knees buckled and he fell sideways, his arm slipping out of Donatello's bloody grip, and he hit his head on metal tray on the way to the floor, sending the tray and its contents down on top of him._

_"Raph!" April called out, taking a few steps around Mike's bed._

_Don waved her back. "Stay with Mikey," he said, then got down on his knees and lifted the tray off his brother. "Damn it, Raph… I swear, you don't have any common sense."_

_Raphael raised his head a bit. "…S'rry, bro…"_

_Donatello examined the two-inch long gash the blood pump left when it hit Raphael's brow, then reached up and grabbed a towel off of Leo's bed and pressed it to the fresh wound. "Why didn't you just lie down like I told you to?"_

_"…I'm lyin' down now…"_

_"I should just shove your ass under the bed and leave you there."_

_Raphael gave him a tight-lipped grin. "…S'good idea…"_

_…  
…  
…_

_Don glanced over at Splinter as the old one set to work stitching Raphael's injured forehead, then looked over at April and motioned for her to join him at Leo's side. The woman stepped near and Don looked into her eyes, then gently ran his fingers up Leonardo's splinted arm, to his contorted shoulder. "It's dislocated. We're gonna have to reset it."_

_"Now? Won't that be hard with…"_

_"It needs to be done," Don interrupted, shaking his head._

_April nodded. "What do you need me to do?"_

_Don took her by the hand and led her around to the left side of the bed, then guided her touch to the right edge of Leo's plastron. "I need you to hang on here," he said, then reached down and lifted her other hand into place. "Just pull towards you as hard as you can."_

_He stepped back around to the right side of the bed and folded his hands, flexing and releasing his fingers a few times before letting out a breath and reaching down. He slid one hand under Leo's shoulder and wrapped the other around his upper arm, then looked up at April. The woman squeezed her eyes shut and pulled on Leo's plastron while Donatello twisted and pushed up on the displaced joint. Don gritted his teeth and looked into his brother's face, watching for grimaces, flinches -- watching for any indication that he could feel the rough manipulations of his disjointed shoulder being reset._

Damn it, Leo… come on,_ Don thought, his eyes burning with exhaustion and repressed tears._ I know this hurts… just show me that you can feel it…

_But nothing showed on Leonardo's face, and Donatello closed his eyes and pushed harder, then yanked down, cringing when he felt and heard the joint pop back into place. He turned to April and nodded appreciatively, then lowered his shaking hands and looked at the recent stitches in Leo's arm, watching for seeping blood or increased swelling -- but the repairs seemed to be holding up well._

_April stepped around the bed. "Do you think… do you think that hurt him?"_

_Don looked over at her, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his features. "It should have."  
---  
--  
-_

A soft touch landed on the back of Donatello's head and he jerked awake. He looked around him, then up at April's weary face.

"Hey," she said, her voice somehow soft and hoarse at the same time. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Just drifted off." Donatello yawned and reached out, tugging on the sleeve of the oversized yellow t-shirt the woman was wearing. "It fits, huh?"

"Pretty much," she gave him a feeble grin. "Thanks for letting me borrow it."

"Figured it'd be better than putting dirty clothes back on." He stood and stretched, then watched the woman self-consciously pulling down on the bottom of the shirt as she tried to cover a bit more of herself. "Sorry I don't have any pants your size."

"It's okay," April shrugged and pushed the wet hair away from her face, then looked around at the three unconscious turtles. "How are the guys doing?"

"They're…" Don glanced at his brothers, then reached up and grabbed the bloody towel off his shoulder. He tossed it onto the counter as he walked past April. "They're still sleeping," he said, then stepped out of the infirmary and made his way to the couch. He sat down, tapping a finger against his leg, and looked over as April sat on the cushion beside him.

"You going to go get washed up?" she asked, folding her hands across her bare lap.

"Not yet."

"I bet it'd help you to relax a bit."

Don shook his head. "I'll take a shower in a little while. Right now I kinda' wanted to go over a couple things with you. We're going to need you to call in a few favors."

"What kind of favors?"

"We'll be needing medical supplies. You know… antibiotics, oxygen… actually, I'll be able to give you a list soon enough, but I just figured I'd give you the heads-up."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks." He looked around the living room, then back over at the woman. "Where's Oyuki?"

April stared down at the floor. "She's in Mikey's room. Asleep, last time I looked."

Don nodded. "That's probably the best place for her right now. I have a feeling she's not going to want to leave for a while, so if you could get some of her clothes and stuff from the apartment, she can sleep in there until… until things calm down." He reached over and gently took April's hand. "And, if it's okay, I was wondering if you could stay on, too. You wouldn't have to sleep on the couch or anything, you can have… you can stay in Leo's room. For now."

"If that's what you want," April said, placing her hand atop his. "I don't know if I could stand being away from here right now, anyway."

"Thanks, Ape," Don stood up, letting his grip linger for a moment before releasing her hand. "Try to get some sleep. I'm gonna go wake Master Splinter so he can get washed up."

April stood and took hold of his arm. "Why don't you go ahead and take your shower first? I mean, Splinter is sleeping… I don't think he'd mind waiting an extra ten minutes." She let go and absently wiped her palm on the shirt.

The turtle glanced at the red handprint, then leaned back against the couch. "I have work to do."

"You've been at it for hours already," she said softly. "If you're worried about leaving the guys alone, I can go in there and keep an eye on them. I'll tell you as soon as they wake up."

Donatello wrapped his arms around himself, clutching his scarred shoulder. "Shit…"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm just..." Don looked at the red handprint again, then unfolded his arms and stared at the blood that covered them. "It's just been a long night." He gritted his teeth and walked quickly to the bathroom, shoving aside the sheet that still served as a door and making his way to the sink. He turned on the cold water and splashed it over his head, shivering as he watched the red drops land on the porcelain, then stood up straight, staring at his reflection in the mirror and focusing on the rivulets of diluted blood as they coursed over his skin.

"Donny?"

Don saw movement at the corner of his vision, but didn't turn to look. "Did you need something, Ape?"

"I brought you a clean towel," she said, stepping up behind him and holding it out for him to see. "Not many left after last night, but this one was tucked away in the linen closet."

Donatello gripped the edge of the sink. "Save it for Splinter. I still have work to do."

April lifted the towel, wiping the water from the back of his head, then guided him around and dried his face. "Why don't you let someone else take care of it for a while?"

Don took the towel from her and twisted it around his hand. "There are just some things I think I should take care of myself, Ape."

"Like what? Why don't you just…"

"Because I have to be sure this time," Don snapped. His eyes widened at his own outburst and he turned away, unwinding the towel and throwing it to the floor. "Last night… I thought Leo was dead. And, you know, for a while I actually… I accepted it." He let out a breath and tightened his fists. "But you and Raph didn't, and you found… I mean… maybe it would've been better if…" he let his voice trail off.

April rested a hand on his shell. "You couldn't have known…"

Don spun around suddenly. "I'm the _smart_ one, remember?" he yelled, taking a step forward. "I'm the one that's supposed to have all the fucking answers!" He slammed his fist against the sink, knocking the bowl off the pedestal and sending it crashing to the floor. Water sprayed out of the twisted pipes and Don stared at it for a few seconds, then threw his hands up in the air. "Great," he said, getting to his knees and turning off the valves. "More to fix. And I still have to take care of that damn door and get the dehumidifying system up and running… I'm never going to get everything done…" Don started to gather up the broken pieces and a large chunk of wet ceramic slipped from his grip, cutting him across the palm. "Son of a bitch…"

April kneeled and took hold of his hands. "Donny…"

He shoved her away, smearing blood on her arm. "There's always something that needs to be fixed around here…" He picked up two large fragments and tried to fit them together, then threw them down in frustration.

"Don, stop…" She wrapped her hands around his wrists. "You can't fix it."

He looked into her eyes. "But we need it."

"Then you'll just have to replace it." April picked up the towel and blotted the blood off of his palm.

Don sat back against the wall, hugging his knees to his plastron. "I'm sorry," he said, so low that she could barely hear him. "I'm just… tired."

April rose to her feet and held a hand down. "C'mon, you need to get washed up."

Don stared at her hand for a moment, then reached up, allowing her to help him to stand. He wobbled a bit as April leaned over and turned on the shower, then she took him by the elbow and guided him into the tub. He tilted his head down, watching the blood dissolve off him and swirl down the drain.

April reached in past the shower curtain, placing a hand under his chin and guiding his face up. "You okay?"

He looked at her and blinked, but it was several seconds before the blink ended. The warm water was relaxing him, making him even more tired, and he leaned off to the side. April grabbed him by the arm again, and he regained his footing and tried to focus on her eyes. "What I… what I was saying about Leo…"

"Donny, don't…"

"Just listen to me, okay?" he interrupted her, trying to build up his courage. "I can't just… I can't accept it again. Not like last night. I have to be sure…" He looked over at the woman, then leaned out of the tub and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her loose, damp hair. "I have to know if it mattered, Ape. Patching him up, keeping him breathing… I mean, why'd we try so damn hard if he's…" the words faded from his lips.

"**You** listen to **me**," she said gently, returning the hug. "None of us could have done what you did. Without you, Mikey and Leo wouldn't even be here now."

Don held her tighter and leaned back, lifting her into the tub with him. She made a small sound of surprise and he let go, blushing and turning away. "I… I'm sorry."

She smiled softly and shook her head. "You just need some sleep, and when you wake up your mind will be clear and…"

"I don't need sleep, I need to know…" he let out a shaky breath. "I mean, I think Mikey has a chance. I hope he's going to be okay, but I don't… I just can't see that for Leo. I just… I don't think he's going to wake up," Don whispered, as if he were afraid of the words.

"Hey… he's going to be okay," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "They both are. They just need time."

Don stared at her for a moment, then looked out at the smashed sink. "I can't fix it, Ape…" He rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. "Not this time."

* * *

**Continued...**


	45. FortyFive

I know it is probably a mistake for me to post this while the TMNT FanFiction comp is up-and-running, since most people's attentions will be elsewhere -- but what the heck, why not? Anyway, I hope you are in the mood for a hefty read this time out, since it is the longest chapter yet. Oh, and don't mind the mistakes -- I edited this while hopped-up on Robitussin.

* * *

- 

Raphael leaned against the doorjamb and stared into the infirmary, looking on as Splinter walked from bed to bed, keeping watch over his two sleeping sons. _Sleeping._ It had been three days since the accident, and no one had yet been able to bring themselves to say that either Mikey or Leo were anything but asleep -- though everyone knew it wasn't true. Sleeping people rolled over, reacted when people shook them, moved their eyes when they dreamed. Sleeping people woke up.

None of that was true for Leo, though there had at least been some kind of reaction from Mikey; he would mumble a bit, breathe heavier, roll his head from side-to-side. At one point he had even opened his eyes, though it wasn't clear if he had woken up for those few moments, or if it was just a muscle spasm of some sort. Still, to Raphael's way of thinking, any movement, however slight, was a good sign -- though that thought only made him worry that much more about Leonardo, who hadn't so much as taken a breath on his own since the accident.

Raphael turned to where Donatello sat in the corner of the room, hunched over his keyboard. He'd set his computer up in there two days before; and so far, with the exception of the rare trip to the bathroom, he hadn't wandered far from it. Nor had he slept, as far as Raphael could tell, and the fatigue and frustration were clearly beginning to wear down on him. Splinter and Raph had done what they could to ease Don's burden, but it seemed that April was the only person that really managed to help. Every now and then she would come in with coffee and snacks, then the two of them would sit and talk quietly for a few minutes while he ate. Donatello would allow himself, for just a little while, to relax, but after April left, he would get right back to work -- and the frustration would return. Though, judging from the bandage on Don's hand and the condition of the bathroom sink, that frustration had already degenerated to outright anger at least once.

_Gonna have to sedate **you** pretty soon, bro,_ Raphael thought, shaking his head.

Almost in response, Donatello glanced up from the computer and gave him a stiff nod, then turned around and hit a button on his keyboard. The printer he had positioned on the floor hummed to life, then began a steady _clack-clack_ sound that shattered the relative silence of the room. Splinter looked up suddenly, and Donatello shrugged at him apologetically before leaning over and picking up the first paper as the second began to print.

Past the mechanical reverberations, Raphael heard the squeak of a door opening somewhere behind him. He looked back over his shoulder, watching as Oyuki made her way out of Michaelangelo's bedroom and eased the door shut behind her. She glanced at Raphael, then looked down at her loose blue nightshirt and ran her hands over it, as if she were trying to work out the wrinkles. After a moment she gave up the effort and looked at Raphael again, offering him an altogether fake smile before making her way through the living room, into the kitchen.

That acknowledgement, as slight as it had been, was one of the few that Raphael could recall getting from the young lady since the accident. She had been hiding out in Michaelangelo's bedroom almost as much as Don had been hiding out in the infirmary. In fact, much like Don, the only person who seemed to have managed to coerce more than a few words out of her had been April, though Raphael was sure that the "conversations" between the two women had been mainly one-sided -- no doubt favoring April.

Raphael looked back into the infirmary once more, watching as Don neatly stacked the printed papers together and fastened them with a paper clip before sitting back down on his stool. Raph reached down and grabbed his cane, tapping his fingers against the handle a few times, then put his weight on the old wood and stepped away from the infirmary door. He limped to the couch, where April sat with the telephone in her hand and an expression of aggravation on her face, and gently cleared his throat.

"Any luck?" he asked.

April looked up at him and shrugged. "Still on hold," she said, shifting the phone to her other ear. "You guys are lucky you don't have to deal with this."

Raphael hummed in agreement. Even in the worst of times, the legal lives of humans couldn't be ignored, and April had tried to convince Oyuki that she needed to report her truck as stolen -- but even after two days of "nagging", as Oyuki called it, the younger woman still steadfastly refused to have anything to do with the police or the insurance company. So April had taken it upon herself to make the calls, and the redhead had so far spent the better part of two hours on the phone, trying to pretend that she was an eighteen-year-old Japanese girl. Judging from April's expression, however, it didn't seem to be going very well.

"This is ridicu..." she began mumbling, then her eyes widened and she spoke into the phone. "Yes, hello? I was told that... you need what, again?" She reached over to the coffee table and flipped through the pile of papers stacked there. "Give me a second."

The turtle patted April on the shoulder. "Well, good luck."

She looked up at him, then back down at the papers on the table. "Thanks," she said, then spoke into the telephone again. "What? No, I wasn't talking to you..."

Raphael looked around the room, again casting a glance at the infirmary door. As much as he wanted to be with his brothers, he couldn't bring himself to go in and just stand by, watching and waiting. He needed to be away from there, if just for a while, though he couldn't figure out just where he should be. He didn't want to deal with the awkward silence that Oyuki would surely have to offer, April was clearly too preoccupied to be much company at the moment, and he didn't want to take another shower. Rest came to mind, but his bedroom was too quiet, too isolated -- and it was bad enough that Don and Oyuki were hiding themselves away, Raphael was not about to do the same.

Raph turned himself in a full circle, looking from door-to-door, then stopped and stared at the far end of the room for a few seconds before limping away from the couch and a softly-swearing April. He made his way to the darkened training room and switched on the light, then smiled faintly, remembering the last time he and his brothers had been in there together. He had been so close to whacking Leonardo with his cane when he'd found him pinning Mikey to the floor -- until Mike had explained that they had just been sparring. The way he said "sparring" had reminded Raphael of his own "sparring session" with Donatello a few weeks before, and how the two of them had been ready to beat each other bloody, until a bullet and a broken leg brought that confrontation to a swift end. Raphael imagined that Leo and Mike's clash in that room must have been very similar, but at least that particular scuffle had ended with both combatants in one piece.

Raph's smile faded when he remembered how Leo and Mike's last argument had ended, and he sighed and slowly made his way to the weapons wall at the far side of the room. He stared at the display for a moment, then reached up, running his hand along one of Michaelangelo's nunchaku, pausing his touch over the spot where Mike's grip had worn down the wood over the years, then slid his fingers down to where the chain links had begun to rust slightly from disuse.

_Better to wear out than to rust out,_ he thought, lowering his hand. He looked at Mike's weapons a moment longer, then glanced over at his own sai and Donatello's bo, noting that they, too, had become victims of neglect over the past few months. _Damn it… what the hell happened to us?_

Raphael let his gaze fall to the floor, then lifted his eyes to look at a pair of sheathed katana where they rested at the center of the display. The barest trace of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth and he shook his head, not at all surprised at how well those swords had been cared for. Every day Leo would wear them out on patrol, then he would be sure they were sharp, clean them, and carefully slide them back into their sheathes before placing them back on their rack. Every day -- until three days ago. Raphael couldn't remember the last time those swords had rested there for so long, untouched.

The turtle leaned his cane against the wall and reached up, hesitating for a few seconds before taking gentle hold of one of the cord-wrapped handles, then eased his other hand around of the lacquered wooden sheath and lifted the sword off the rack. He turned the katana over and ran his fingers up to the decorative inlay at the top of the scabbard, examining the design. This sword was older than Leo's other one, but no less cared for -- no less immaculate. It had been given to Leonardo by Tai San; a gift to replace Leonardo's other sword's twin after it had been broken in Japan.

_…This sword very old…_ Tai San's gruff voice echoed in Raphael's mind. _…Very special._

"Special…" Raph whispered, then tightened his hand around the haft and carefully slid the blade free.

Raphael watched as his eyes came into view, reflected in the polished steel, then placed the sheath back on the rack and stepped to the training mat at the center of the room. He took an unsteady stance and slowly began to run through the sword positions that he remembered from his lessons many years before, counting out each station as he pulled into it. Gradually, the counting ceased and his movement started to flow as he began a shadow-boxing exercise. He imagined himself being set upon by unseen attackers, and he grinned with approval as his brother's katana cut noiselessly through the air with each slash, jab, and parry.

_I may be silent, but I'm thinking,_ he said to himself as he pulled into a high-block of his imaginary foe's blade. _I may not speak, but…_

Raphael twisted around to counter a nonexistent attack from behind, but the movement proved to be too much strain on his barely-healed leg and his balance failed. He instinctively threw his arms out, regaining his equilibrium, but sending Leonardo's sword flying from his hand. The weapon skittered across the concrete floor and bounced off the far wall before coming to rest against the weight rack.

Raphael stared at the weapon for a few moments, then limped over and picked it up. "Damn it," he whispered, turning the sword over and examining the scratches he had just put on the hand guard and the tip of the blade. "Just great…"

"A little out of practice?"

Raphael spun towards the door and saw Donatello there, leaning against the jamb with a folded stack of papers in his hand. After the surprise of seeing his brother out of the infirmary passed, Raph shook his head and looked back down at the sword. "I never really had a feel for these things," he said, wiping the concrete dust off the metal. "You think Leo'll still be able to use 'em as good as he used to? I mean, with his arm being all busted up the way it is?" There was no answer and Raphael again looked over at Don, who was staring down at the now-unfolded stack of papers. "What'cha got there, bro?"

Don refolded the papers and turned towards the living room. "Something I wanted to talk to you about," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "C'mon."

Raph nodded. "Give me a sec," he said, then watched Donatello step out the door. Raphael slowly limped back to the weapons wall and reached for the empty sheath, but even as he did, he found himself tightening his hold on the sword's handle. He let his fingers hover over the wooden scabbard for several long seconds, then lowered his hand and took hold of his cane, backing away from the wall. He turned and left the training room with the katana still in his grip, then stopped just outside the door as he heard the sound of voices set in deep whispers from the area of the couch. He looked over and saw April still sitting there with the telephone held to her ear, though now Donatello was kneeling by her side with his hand holding hers. The woman lowered her head and shook it slowly, and Don let out a breath and set the stack of papers down on the arm of the couch, then reached up and ran his thumb under April's eye.

"I'll let you know, okay?" he told her softly.

April mouthed the word "okay", and Don stood up and let go of her hand, then reached down and picked up the stack of papers. All at once, he seemed to realize that Raphael was there and spun around to face him, then turned without a word and stepped away from the couch and out of the room. Raphael stood frozen in place for several long seconds before moving, and as he walked past the couch he found himself pausing by April's side long enough to see tears gathered in her eyes. Raphael cleared his throat, then followed his brother into the infirmary.

Raphael found Donatello standing by his computer when he entered the room, but Don didn't stay there for long. He set the stack of papers down next to his keyboard and gave Raph a slight glance, then walked between his other brothers' beds and placed a hand on Splinter's shoulder. Splinter turned to face him, then looked over at Raphael, who still stood by the door. Raph quickly slid the sword behind his back, trying to get it out of his father's line of sight, but he could tell from the look on Splinter's face that the action had come a little too late.

"Why don't you go take a break, Master?" Don said, his tone as casual as he could manage. "Me and Raph can handle the watch for a while."

Splinter looked into Donatello's tired eyes. "Have you slept?"

Don shook his head. "I've been a little busy, Sensei," he admitted, taking his hand off his father's shoulder.

"Perhaps it would be best, then, if Raphael and I stood watch while you took a break."

"I still have a few things to take care of, Master."

Splinter tilted his chin up, squinting questioningly at his son. "These... _things_ cannot wait until you are rested?"

"It won't take long," Don said, looking away. "I promise I'll get some sleep in a little while."

Splinter stared at him for a moment, then nodded and moved towards the door. "I will return shortly," he said, then made his way past Raphael and into the living room, closing the door behind him.

Raphael let out a long-held breath, then watched as Donatello walked back to his computer. Raph took a step forward, stopping when the sudden sound of metal scraping across a rough surface rang through the room. He looked down at the katana, noticing that the tip of the weapon had found its way into the grouted groove between the floor tiles, then lifted it and grimaced at the further damage he had just done to the metal. He let himself focus on his eyes' reflection again before lowering the sword and slowly limping to Leonardo's side.

"Here ya' go, bro," Raph said softly, lifting Leo's left arm and laying the sword on the bed beside him. He lowered his brother's hand onto the haft, then patted it gently. "Sorry about the scratches." Raphael took two limping steps back, then looked over at Don, who held the papers out to him. Raph took the top sheet, giving the list of names, phone numbers, and addresses a cursory glance. "Who're these guys?"

"Cardiac surgeons. The best within a couple hundred miles."

Raph glanced over his shoulder at Michaelangelo. "Thinking of calling in a second opinion?"

"Not exactly," Don said, laying the rest of the stack down the counter.

Raphael focused on the paper again, then drew his eye ridges together. "You weren't actually thinking of having one of these guys take a look at Mikey, were you?"

Donatello tightened his jaw. "I've reached the limits of what I can do. From now on it's going to take more that guesswork and Band-Aids. Mikey needs help from someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"And how are any of these guys supposed to know jack about how our bodies work?" Raphael snapped.

"I've checked their records. All the doctors on that list have shown that they're quick to adapt to unusual situations. Like I said: they're the best."

"That's beside the point. All they'd want to do to Mikey is dissect him, like that Synargo jackass was going to do. Or did you forget that whole Dator thing ever happened?"

Donatello grabbed the paper out of Raphael's hand and spun back around towards the computer. "You don't have to remind me of that," he said, slamming the list down on the counter. "You weren't even there!"

"I saw…"

"All you saw was a video," Don interrupted, nearly yelling. "**I** was there.** I** saw what they were doing to…" Donatello stopped and stared at Raphael for a moment, then looked past him, towards Michaelangelo's bed. "This time it'll be different. This time **we'll** be in control."

"_In control_? You planning on holding a knife to the doctor's throat?"

"If that's what it takes."

Raphael glared at Don. "Then what? You gonna kill the doc if he can't fix Mikey's heart?"

Donatello shook his head. "Some things can't be fixed," he said, then stepped around Raphael and made his way to Michaelangelo's side.

"Then why the hell are you…?" Raph threw his hands up in exasperation. "Let's fucking face it, you're talking about kidnapping one of them. If you don't think they can help Mikey, then why…?"

"I never said I didn't think they could help," Don said, drawing the penlight out of his belt. "I said that some things couldn't be _fixed_."

"You ain't making a damn bit of sense."

Don turned around and leaned his shell against Mike's bed, absently tapping the small flashlight against his palm. "Come here," he said, sighing. "I need to show you something."

Raphael reluctantly stepped near and Don switched on the penlight, then leaned over Michaelangelo. He waited for Raphael to lean in close, as well, then eased Mike's eyelids open and aimed the beam in at first one pupil, then the other.

"You see that?" Don asked.

"What am I looking at?"

"Did you see how his eyes reacted?"

Raphael shrugged. "They got small. They always do that."

"They're supposed to, anyway. It's an indicator of neural function -- it means the brain is working. At least… somewhat." Don turned and walked to the head of Leonardo's bed, then waited as Raphael made his way over. Donatello swallowed hard and pushed open Leo's eyelids, then aimed the light in, as he had done with Michaelangelo. "Now what do…" Don stopped, the words vanishing from his lips, and it was several seconds before he found his voice again. "Now what do you see?"

Raphael leaned over Leonardo, staring deep into his eyes, then stood back suddenly. "They're not changing…"

"They haven't since the accident."

"What're you saying, Donny?"

Don bit down on his lip and eased Leo's eyelids shut, struggling to force the next words out. "I'm saying that he's probably never going to use those swords again," he told Raphael at long last, motioning towards the weapon under Leonardo's palm. "Or walk or talk… or open his eyes. He's never going to wake up."

Raphael paled. "You don't know that… he could..."

"He hasn't reacted to pain or any other stimulus," Don interrupted. "He can't breathe on his own -- the only thing keeping him alive right now is a jury-rigged oxygen pump, and if that went down, or if… if we disconnected it, his heart would stop beating within minutes."

"We're not human -- none of that could even apply to us."

Don turned away, stepping to the counter and pulling open a drawer. "Humans are the only frame of reference we have." He placed the penlight in the drawer and slid it shut. "Hell, they're the only frame of reference we've ever had. And so far, most of what applies to them **does** seem to apply to us."

"_Most_. Not _all_." Raphael took a few limping steps to Donatello's side. "You're not a doctor, Donny… you said so, yourself. You could be wrong about **all** of this."

"I hope to God I am," Don said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "But if I'm right, we're going to have to consider all our options." He reached out and picked up the stack of papers, then turned and held them out to Raphael again. "**That's **what this list is all about."

Raphael took the papers and put them back down on the counter. "These are heart doctors, not brain doctors," he said, his ire rising. "They might be able to help Mikey, but I doubt there's a damn thing they could do for Leo."

"Exactly." Donatello looked down and ran a thumb along the bandage on his palm. "Some things can't be fixed… they can only be replaced."

An air of dread settled down over Raphael as he realized what Donatello had been trying to tell him since the two of them had gotten to the infirmary. Leo's heart… in Mikey's body. Raph gritted his teeth, managing only to hiss out, "Donny…"

Donatello pointed at the papers. "Look… if one of these doctors can do something for Mikey without touching Leo, then we'll let them try, but if the only real option… if this is his only chance, then we're going to have to at least consider it."

"Consider what?" Raphael felt his face begin to burn. "Killing Leo?"

"He's dying, Raph."

"_Dying_ isn't _dead_."

"Brain death **is** death," Don said, raising his voice. "Heartbeat or not, we lost Leo in that accident -- and if his _body_ dies before we have a chance to see this through, then it'll be too late for his heart to do Mikey any good."

"It won't work." Raphael felt an ache rise into his chest and shook his head hard. "And even if it did work… if, by some miracle, Mikey lived through it, how do you think he'd react? When he woke up and we told him that we let Leo… when we told him what we did? You really think he'd be happy about it? He'd never accept it, and you know it."

"At least he'd be alive."

Raphael turned away. "_Alive_ isn't _living_, either."

Don slammed his fist down on the counter. "Leo would _want_ us to do this."

"Mikey _wouldn't_."

"You don't know that."

"And you don't know what Leo would want!"

"I know he wouldn't want to die like this," Don yelled, motioning towards Leonardo's still form. "He wouldn't want to just lie there waiting for his body to give out. He'd want his death to have some meaning… to serve some purpose. Leo never did a damn thing in his life unless he thought it could help someone else, and **that's** how he'd want to die -- with _honor_. Who the hell are we to deny him that?"

Raphael opened his mouth to yell back, but echoed words from his own mind silenced him. _Damn it, Leo… guys like you don't die like this. Not without a fight… not without a fucking reason --_ he'd thought that three days before, just after the accident. But that was when Leo was dead already -- dead, as far as they knew. The words made sense back then, but not now. Not while there was still a chance that Don was wrong.

Raphael felt the weight of Donatello's stare and he turned to face him. "I don't want to lose either of them."

"But don't you at least want to try to save one of them?" Donatello let out a long breath, then turned to his computer and sat down. "We have to keep our options open," he said, beginning to type. "_All _our options."

Raphael stared at the back of Donatello's head for a moment, then looked over at Michaelangelo. "How about an option that doesn't involve putting both our brothers under the knife?" he whispered, then looked at Don again. "When were you planning on telling Master Splinter all this?"

Donatello stopped typing suddenly, his fingers frozen over the keyboard. "Soon."

"You weren't going to tell him at all… were you?"

"There are some decisions he shouldn't have to make."

"Maybe we shouldn't be making it, either."

"Somebody has to," Don said, again rubbing his bandaged palm. "Somebody has to speak for the people that can't speak for themselves."

"That's not what you're doing…" Raphael shook his head, realizing that he was now fully-involved in the situation. "…Not what we're doing, and you know it. It's not about what Leo and Mikey want, it's about what we want."

"You know what I want, Raph?" Don said, resting his elbows on the counter and clutching his head in his hands. "I want everything to be back to normal. I want to go to bed and wake up to find this whole damn nightmare was just that -- a _nightmare_. I want my brothers back. I want it to be the four of us again… it was supposed to be the four of us, wasn't it? You, me, Mikey and Leo… the four of us…" Don folded his arms across the counter and rested his head on them. "And you know I love you, Raph, but… I don't want it to end up just you and me."

Raphael felt a tear escape his eye and he reached up, wiping it away, then looked at Don and watched as his tensed muscles relaxed and his shoulders drooped. Raph raised a hand and placed it on his brother's shoulder. "A sleepy man needs to sleep, bro," he whispered, recalling more words from Mike's book collection. Don opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them again, drifting off, and Raphael gave the list of doctors a sidelong glance before turning away. He slowly walked to Leonardo's bed and looked down at him, and his throat closed up in a stinging ache when the rest of the quote leaped into his mind. _"A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist."_ Raphael squeezed his own eyes shut. _Son of a bitch, Leo… I know you don't want to die like this -- but we both know that Mikey wouldn't want to live like that._

Raph opened his eyes and looked from one quiet face to the other, then reached down and slowly eased sword out of Leonardo's loose grip. He held the weapon up, again staring at his own eyes, then rotated the katana, bringing it parallel with Leo's body, examining Leo's reflection in the metal -- the sheet pulled up to the center of his chest, the brace on his neck, his oxygen mask, his bandaged cheeks, his loosely-closed eyes. Raphael twisted his wrist and a flash of reflected light from the overhead assaulted his vision. He blinked, then paused and blinked again. _His eyes haven't reacted since the accident,_ he thought, repeating Don's words in his mind. _He hasn't moved since…_

Raph drew his eye ridges together and looked down at Leo's hand, then began to turn towards Donatello -- but another presence brought his attention around to the door, instead. Old eyes stared at the turtle curiously, then shifted to the weapon being held over Leonardo. Raphael felt his face begin to warm and lowered the sword suddenly, clearing his throat. "Sensei… I was just…"

Splinter tilted his chin up, then stepped to his son's side, reaching out and gently taking the weapon from him. He turned the katana over, examining the hand guard, then ran his finger along the fresh scratches. "It has been damaged."

Raphael nervously rubbed around the stitches on his forehead. "Yeah, I… kinda dropped it."

"You were practicing with it?"

"A little, yeah," Raph admitted, almost afraid that he would be scolded for using Leonardo's weapon without permission. "I was just about to put it back."

Splinter lowered the sword. "I will return it," he said, walking towards the door. He stopped at the threshold and looked back over his shoulder. "If you would like, after your brother…" Splinter looked at his unconscious sons, then back at Raphael. "After Donatello wakes, you and I could practice together."

Raphael smiled faintly. "I think I'd like that, master."

Splinter gave him a nod, then left the room, and Raphael turned back to Leonardo, a moment later shifting his eyes across to Michaelangelo. Raph slowly stepped around the foot of the bed, then to Mike's side, but couldn't stop himself from looking back towards Leo. Raph wanted to be with them now, more than ever… he wanted to be with both of them, but he couldn't bring himself to decide who he should be with -- the one he had lost, or the one he was losing.

There was a slight noise from the far side of the room and Raphael looked over, watching as Don shifted in his sleep and mumbled to himself in the midst of a dream. Raph stared at him for a moment, then limped to his side, lifting a hand and resting it on his head. Don jumped a bit, then settled back down into his restless sleep, and Raphael shook his head silently, deciding at last which brother to stand by.

"We'll do this, Donny… " Raph whispered. "But if it doesn't work…" He sighed and looked over at the others, hoping that, just this once, Mike wouldn't go where Leo was leading.

-

* * *

**_Continued..._**


End file.
